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THE    VITAL     MESSAGE 
ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE 


THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

BY 

ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  NEW  REVELATION," 
ETC. 


NEW  XSJr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


-> 

PSfC 

LIBRARY 


COPYRIGHT,  1919, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


PREFACE 

In  "The  New  Revelation "  the  first  dawn 
of  the  coming  change  has  been  described.  In 
"The  Vital  Message"  the  sun  has  risen 
higher,  and  one  sees  more  clearly  and 
broadly  what  our  new  relations  with  the  Un- 
seen may  be.  As  I  look  into  the  future  of 
the  human  race  I  am  reminded  of  how  once, 
from  amid  the  bleak  chaos  of  rock  and  snow 
at  the  head  of  an  Alpine  pass,  I  looked  down 
upon  the  far  stretching  view  of  Lombardy, 
shimmering  in  the  sunshine  and  extending 
in  one  splendid  panorama  of  blue  lakes  and 
green  rolling  hills  until  it  melted  into  the 
golden  haze  which  draped  the  far  horizon. 
Such  a  promised  land  is  at  our  very  feet 
which,  when  we  attain  it,  will  make  our  pres- 
ent civilisation  seem  barren  and  uncouth. 
Already  our  vanguard  is  well  over  the  pass. 
Nothing  can  now  prevent  us  from  reaching 
that  wonderful  land  which  stretches  so 
clearly  before  those  eyes  which  are  opened 
to  see  it. 

453141 


vi  PREFACE 

That  stimulating  writer,  V.  C.  Desertis, 
has  remarked  that  the  Second  Coming, 
which  has  always  been  timed  to  follow  Ar- 
mageddon, may  be  fulfilled  not  by  a  descent 
of  the  spiritual  to  us,  but  by  the  ascent  of  our 
material  plane  to  the  spiritual,  and  the 
blending  of  the  two  phases  of  existence.  It 
is,  at  least,  a  fascinating  speculation.  But 
without  so  complete  an  overthrow  of  the 
partition  walls  as  this  would  imply  we  know 
enough  already  to  assure  ourselves  of  such 
a  close  approximation  as  will  surely  deeply 
modify  all  our  views  of  science,  of  religion 
and  of  life.  What  form  these  changes  may 
take  and  what  the  evidence  is  upon  which 
they  will  be  founded  are  briefly  set  forth  in 
this  volume. 

Arthur  Conan  Doyle. 
Crowborough, 

July,  1919. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     The  Two  Needful  Readjustments   .  11 

II    The  Dawning  of  the  Light    ....  29 

III  The  Great  Argument 52 

IV  The  Coming  World 87 

V    Is  It  the  Second  Dawn? 113 

APPENDICES 

A.  Dr.  Geley's  Experiments  .     .     .  141 

B.  A  Particular  Instance     .     .     .  152 

C.  Spirit  Photography       ....  156 

D.  The  Clairvoyance  of  Mrs.  B.      .  162 


vu 


THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 


THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   TWO   NEEDFUL   READJUSTMENTS 

It  has  been  our  fate,  among  all  the  in- 
numerable generations  of  mankind,  to  face 
the  most  frightful  calamity  that  has  ever  be- 
fallen the  world.  There  is  a  basic  fact  which 
cannot  be  denied,  and  should  not  be  over- 
looked. For  a  most  important  deduction 
must  immediately  follow  from  it.  That  de- 
duction is  that  we,  who  have  borne  the  pains, 
shall  also  learn  the  lesson  which  they  were 
intended  to  convey.  If  we  do  not  learn  it 
and  proclaim  it,  then  when  can  it  ever  be 
learned  and  proclaimed,  since  there  can 
never  again  be  such  a  spiritual  ploughing 
and  harrowing  and  preparation  for  the  seed? 
If  our  souls,  wearied  and  tortured  during 

11 


t$  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

these  dreadful  five  years  of  self-sacrifice  and 
suspense,  can  show  no  radical  changes,  then 
what  souls  will  ever  respond  to  a  fresh  in- 
flux of  heavenly  inspiration?  In  that  case 
the  state  of  the  human  race  would  indeed  be 
hopeless,  and  never  in  all  the  coming  cen- 
turies would  there  be  any  prospect  of  im- 
provement. 

"Why  was  this  tremendous  experience 
forced  upon  mankind  ?  Surely  it  is  a  super- 
ficial thinker  who  imagines  that  the  great 
Designer  of  all  things  has  set  the  whole 
planet  in  a  ferment,  and  strained  every  na- 
tion to  exhaustion,  in  order  that  this  or  that 
frontier  be  moved,  or  some  fresh  combina- 
tion be  formed  in  the  kaleidoscope  of  na- 
tions. No,  the  causes  of  the  convulsion,  and 
its  objects,  are  more  profound  than  that. 
They  are  essentially  religious,  not  political. 
They  lie  far  deeper  than  the  national  squab- 
bles of  the  day.  A  thousand  years  hence 
those  national  results  may  matter  little,  but 
the  religious  result  will  rule  the  world.  That 
religious  result  is  the  reform  of  the  decadent 
Christianity  of  to-day,  its  simplification,  its 
purification,  and  its  reinforcement  by  the 
facts  of  (spirit  communion  and  the  clear 


TWO  NEEDFUL  READJUSTMENTS      13 

knowledge  of  what  lies  beyond  the  exit-door 
of  death.  The  shock  of  the  war  was  meant 
to  rouse  us  to  mental  and  moral  earnest- 
ness, to  give  us  the  courage  to  tear  away 
venerable  shams,  and  to  force  the  human 
race  to  realise  and  use  the  vast  new  revela- 
tion which  has  been  so  clearly  stated  and  so 
abundantly  proved,  for  all  who  will  examine 
the  statements  and  proofs  with  an  open 
mind. 

Consider  the  awful  condition  of  the  world 
before  this  thunder-bolt  struck  it.  Could 
anyone,  tracing  back  down  the  centuries  and 
examining  the  record  of  the  wickedness  of 
man,  find  anything  which  could  compare 
with  the  story  of  the  nations  during  the 
last  twenty  years!  Think  of  the  condition 
of  Russia  during  that  time,  with  her  bru- 
tal aristocracy  and  her  drunken  democracy, 
her  murders  on  either  side,  her  Siberian 
horrors,  her  Jew  baitings  and  her  corrup- 
tion. Think  of  the  figure  of  Leopold  of 
Belgium,  an  incarnate  devil  who  from  mo- 
tives of  greed  carried  murder  and  torture 
through  a  large  section  of  Africa,  and  yet 
was  received  in  every  court,  and  was  eventu- 
ally buried  after  a  panegyric  from  a  Cardi- 


14?  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

nal  of  the  Roman  Church — a  church  which 
had  never  once  raised  her  voice  against  his 
diabolical  career.  Consider  the  similar 
crimes  in  the  Putumayo,  where  British  capi- 
talists, if  not  guilty  of  outrage,  can  at  least 
not  be  acquitted  of  having  condoned  it  by 
their  lethargy  and  trust  in  local  agents. 
Think  of  Turkey  and  the  recurrent  massa- 
cres of  her  subject  races.  Think  of  the 
heartless  grind  of  the  factories  everywhere, 
where  work  assumed  a  very  different  and 
more  unnatural  shape  than  the  ancient  la- 
bour of  the  fields.  Think  of  the  sensuality 
of  many  rich,  the  brutality  of  many  poor, 
the  shallowness  of  many  fashionable,  the 
coldness  and  deadness  of  religion,  the  ab- 
sence anywhere  of  any  deep,  true  spiritual 
impulse.  Think,  above  all,  of  the  organised 
materialism  of  Germany,  the  arrogance,  the 
heartlessness,  the  negation  of  everything 
which  one  could  possibly  associate  with  the 
living  spirit  of  Christ  as  evident  in  the  utter- 
ances of  Catholic  Bishops,  like  Hartmann 
of  Cologne,  as  in  those  of  Lutheran  Pastors. 
Put  all  this  together  and  say  if  the  human 
race  has  ever  presented  a  more  unlovely 
aspect.    When  we  try  to  find  the  brighter 


TWO  NEEDFUL  READJUSTMENTS      15 

spots  they  are  chiefly  where  civilisation,  as 
apart  from  religion,  has  built  up  necessities 
for  the  community,  such  as  hospitals,  uni- 
versities, and  organised  charities,  as  con- 
spicuous in  Buddhist  Japan  as  in  Christian 
Europe.  We  cannot  deny  that  there  has 
been  much  virtue,  much  gentleness,  much 
spirituality  in  individuals.  But  the  churches 
were  empty  husks,  which  contained  no 
spiritual  food  for  the  human  race,  and  had 
in  the  main  ceased  to  influence  its  actions, 
save  in  the  direction  of  soulless  forms. 

This  is  not  an  over-coloured  picture.  Can 
we  not  see,  then,  what  was  the  inner  reason 
for  the  war?  Can  we  not  understand  that 
it  was  needful  to  shake  mankind  loose  from 
gossip  and  pink  teas,  and  sword-worship, 
and  Saturday  night  drunks,  and  self-seeking 
politics  and  theological  quibbles — to  wake 
them  up  and  make  them  realise  that  they 
stand  upon  a  narrow  knife-edge  between 
two  awful  eternities,  and  that,  here  and 
now,  they  have  to  finish  with  make-beliefs, 
and  with  real  earnestness  and  courage  face 
those  truths  which  have  always  been  palpa- 
ble where  indolence,  or  cowardice,  or  vested 
interests  have  not  obscured  the  vision.    Let 


16  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

us  try  to  appreciate  what  those  truths  are 
and  the  direction  which  reform  must  take. 
It  is  the  new  spiritual  developments  which 
predominate  in  my  own  thoughts,  but  there 
are  two  other  great  readjustments  which  are 
necessary  before  they  can  take  their  full  ef- 
fect. On  the  spiritual  side  I  can  speak  with 
the  force  of  knowledge  from  the  beyond.  On 
the  other  two  points  of  reform,  I  make  no 
such  claim. 

The  first  is  that  in  the  Bible,  which  is 
the  foundation  of  our  present  religious 
thought,  we  have  bound  together  the  living 
and  the  dead,  and  the  dead  has  tainted  the 
living.  A  mummy  and  an  angel  are  in  most 
unnatural  partnership.  There  can  be  no 
clear  thinking,  and  no  logical  teaching  until 
the  old  dispensation  has  been  placed  on  the 
shelf  of  the  scholar,  and  removed  from  the 
desk  of  the  teacher.  It  is  indeed  a  wonder- 
ful book,  in  parts  the  oldest  which  has  come 
down  to  us,  a  book  filled  with  rare  knowl- 
edge, with  history,  with  poetry,  with  oc- 
cultism, with  folklore.  But  it  has  no 
connection  with  modern  conceptions  of  re- 
ligion. In  the  main  it  is  actually  antagonis- 
tic to  them.    Two  contradictory  codes  have 


TWO  NEEDFUL  READJUSTMENTS     17 

been  circulated  under  one  cover,  and  the  re- 
sult is  dire  confusion.  The  one  is  a  scheme 
depending  upon  a  special  tribal  God,  intense- 
ly anthropomorphic  and  filled  with  rage, 
jealousy  and  revenge.  The  conception  per- 
vades every  book  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Even  in  the  psalms,  which  are  perhaps  the 
most  spiritual  and  beautiful  section,  the 
psalmist,  amid  much  that  is  noble,  sings  of 
the  fearsome  things  which  his  God  will  do 
to  his  enemies.  "They  shall  go  down  alive 
into  hell."  There  is  the  keynote  of  this  an- 
cient document — a  document  which  advo- 
cates massacre,  condones  polygamy,  accepts 
slavery,  and  orders  the  burning  of  so-called 
witches.  Its  Mosaic  provisions  have  long 
been  laid  aside.  We  do  not  consider  our- 
selves accursed  if  we  fail  to  mutilate  our 
bodies,  if  we  eat  forbidden  dishes,  fail  to 
trim  our  beards,  or  wear  clothes  of  two  ma- 
terials. But  we  cannot  lay  aside  the  pro- 
visions and  yet  regard  the  document  as  di- 
vine. No  learned  quibbles  can  ever  persuade 
an  honest  earnest  mind  that  that  is  right. 
One  may  say:  " Everyone  knows  that  that  is 
the  old  dispensation,  and  is  not  to  be  acted 
upon."    It  is  not  true.    It  is  continually 


18  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

acted  upon,  and  always  will  be  so  long  as  it  is 
made  part  of  one  sacred  book.  William  the 
Second  acted  upon  it.  His  German  God 
which  wrought  such  mischief  in  the  world 
was  the  reflection  of  the  dreadful  being  who 
ordered  that  captives  be  put  under  the  har- 
row. The  cities  of  Belgium  were  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  cities  of  Moab.  Every  hard- 
hearted brute  in  history,  more  especially  in 
the  religious  wars,  has  found  his  inspiration 
in  the  Old  Testament.  "  Smite  and  spare 
not!"  "An  eye  for  an  eye!",  how  readily 
the  texts  spring  to  the  grim  lips  of  the  mur- 
derous fanatic.  Francis  on  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's night,  Alva  in  the  Lowlands,  Tilly  at 
Magdeburg,  Cromwell  at  Drogheda,  the 
Covenanters  at  Philliphaugh,  the  Anabap- 
tists of  Munster,  and  the  early  Mormons  of 
Utah,  all  found  their  murderous  impulses 
fortified  from  this  unholy  source.  Its  red 
trail  runs  through  history.  Even  where  the 
New  Testament  prevails,  its  teaching  must 
still  be  dulled  and  clouded  by  its  sterner 
neighbour.  Let  us  retain  this  honoured 
work  of  literature.  Let  us  remove  the  taint 
which  poisons  the  very  spring  of  our  reli- 
gious thought. 


TWO  NEEDFUL  READJUSTMENTS     19 

This  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  first  clearing 
which  should  be  made  for  the  more  beauti- 
ful building  to  come.  The  second  is  less  im- 
portant, as  it  is  a  shifting  of  the  point  of 
view,  rather  than  an  actual  change.  It  is 
to  be  remembered  that  Christ's  life  in  this 
world  occupied,  so  far  as  we  can  estimate, 
33  years,  whilst  from  His  arrest  to  His 
resurrection  was  less  than  a  week.  Yet  the 
whole  Christian  system  has  come  to  revolve 
round  His  death,  to  the  partial  exclusion  of 
the  beautiful  lesson  of  His  life.  Far  too 
much  weight  has  been  placed  upon  the  one, 
and  far  too  little  upon  the  other,  for  the 
death,  beautiful,  and  indeed  perfect,  as  it 
was,  could  be  matched  by  that  of  many 
scores  of  thousands  who  have  died  for  an 
idea,  while  the  life,  with  its  consistent  rec- 
ord of  charity,  breadth  of  mind,  unselfish- 
ness, courage,  reason,  and  progressiveness, 
is  absolutely  unique  and  superhuman.  Even 
in  these  abbreviated,  translated,  and  second- 
hand records  we  receive  an  impression  such 
as  no  other  life  can  give — an  impression 
which  fills  us  with  utter  reverence.  Napo- 
leon, no  mean  judge  of  human  nature,  said 
of  it:  "It  is  different  with  Christ.    Every- 


20  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

thing  about  Him  astonishes  me.  His  spirit 
surprises  me,  and  His  will  confounds  me. 
Between  Him  and  anything  of  this  world 
there  is  no  possible  comparison.  He  is  really 
a  being  apart.  The  nearer  I  approach  Him 
and  the  closer  I  examine  Him,  the  more 
everything  seems  above  me." 

It  is  this  wonderful  life,  its  example  and 
inspiration,  which  was  the  real  object  of 
the  descent  of  this  high  spirit  on  to  our 
planet.  If  the  human  race  had  earnestly 
centred  upon  that  instead  of  losing  itself 
in  vain  dreams  of  vicarious  sacrifices  and 
imaginary  falls,  with  all  the  mystical  and 
contentious  philosophy  which  has  centred 
round  the  subject,  how  very  different  the 
level  of  human  culture  and  happiness  would 
be  to-day!  Such  theories,  with  their  abso- 
lute want  of  reason  or  morality,  have  been 
the  main  cause  why  the  best  minds  have 
been  so  often  alienated  from  the  Christian 
system  and  proclaimed  themselves  material- 
ists. In  contemplating  what  shocked  their 
instincts  for  truth  they  have  lost  that  which 
was  both  true  and  beautiful.  Christ's  death 
was  worthy  of  His  life,  and  rounded  off  a 
perfect  career,  but  it  is  the  life  which  He 


TWO  NEEDFUL  READJUSTMENTS      21 

has  left  as  the  foundation  for  the  permanent 
religion  of  mankind.  All  the  religious  wars, 
the  private  feuds,  and  the  countless  miseries 
of  sectarian  contention,  would  have  been  at 
least  minimised,  if  not  avoided,  had  the  bare 
example  of  Christ's  life  been  adopted  as 
the  standard  of  conduct  and  of  religion. 

But  there  are  certain  other  considerations 
which  should  have  weight  when  we  con- 
template this  life  and  its  efficacy  as  an  ex- 
ample. One  of  these  is  that  the  very  essence 
of  it  was  that  He  critically  examined  re- 
ligion as  He  found  it,  and  brought  His  ro- 
bust common  sense  and  courage  to  bear  in 
exposing  the  shams  and  in  pointing  out  the 
better  path.  That  is  the  hall-mark  of  the 
true  follower  of  Christ,  and  not  the  mute 
acceptance  of  doctrines  which  are,  upon  the 
face  of  them,  false  and  pernicious,  because 
they  come  to  us  with  some  show  of  authority. 
What  authority  have  we  now,  save  this  very 
life,  which  could  compare  with  those  Jew- 
ish books  which  were  so  binding  in  their 
force,  and  so  immutably  sacred  that  even 
the  misspellings  or  pen-slips  of  the  scribe 
were  most  carefully  preserved  I  It  is  a  sim- 
ple obvious  fact  that  if  Christ  had  been 


22  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

orthodox,  and  had  possessed  what  is  so  often 
praised  as  a  " child-like  faith,"  there  could 
have  been  no  such  thing  as  Christianity. 
Let  reformers  who  love  Him  take  heart  as 
they  consider  that  they  are  indeed  follow- 
ing in  the  footsteps  of  the  Master,  who  has 
at  no  time  said  that  the  revelation  which  He 
brought,  and  which  has  been  so  imperfectly 
used,  is  the  last  which  will  come  to  man- 
kind. In  our  own  times  an  equally  great  one 
has  been  released  from  the  centre  of  all 
truth,  which  will  make  as  deep  an  impres- 
sion upon  the  human  race  as  Christianity, 
though  no  predominant  figure  has  yet  ap- 
peared to  enforce  its  lessons.  Such  a  figure 
has  appeared  once  when  the  days  were  ripe, 
and  I  do  not  doubt  that  this  may  occur  once 
more. 

One  other  consideration  must  be  urged. 
Christ  has  not  given  His  message  in  the  first 
person.  If  He  had  done  so  our  position 
would  be  stronger.  It  has  been  repeated 
by  the  hearsay  and  report  of  earnest  but  ill- 
educated  men.  It  speaks  much  for  educa- 
tion in  the  Roman  province  of  Judea  that 
these  fishermen,  publicans  and  others  could 
even  read  or  write.    Luke  and  Paul  were, 


TWO  NEEDFUL  READJUSTMENTS      23 

of  course,  of  a  higher  class,  but  their  in- 
formation came  from  their  lowly  predeces- 
sors. Their  account  is  splendidly  satisfying 
in  the  unity  of  the  general  impression  which 
it  produces,  and  the  clear  drawing  of  the 
Master's  teaching  and  character.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  full  of  inconsistencies  and 
contradictions  upon  immaterial  matters. 
For  example,  the  four  accounts  of  the  resur- 
rection differ  in  detail,  and  there  is  no 
orthodox  learned  lawyer  who  dutifully  ac- 
cepts all  four  versions  who  could  not  shat- 
ter the  evidence  if  he  dealt  with  it  in  the 
course  of  his  profession.  These  details  are 
immaterial  to  the  spirit  of  the  message.  It 
is  not  common  sense  to  suppose  that  every 
item  is  inspired,  or  that  we  have  to  make 
no  allowance  for  imperfect  reporting,  in- 
dividual convictions,  oriental  phraseology, 
or  faults  of  translation.  These  have,  indeed, 
been  admitted  by  revised  versions.  In  His 
utterance  about  the  letter  and  the  spirit  we 
could  almost  believe  that  Christ  had  foreseen 
the  plague  of  texts  from  which  we  have  suf- 
fered, even  as  He  Himself  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  the  theologians  of  His  day,  who 
then,  as  now,  have  been  a  curse  to  the  world. 


24  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

We  were  meant  to  use  our  reasons  and  brains 
in  adapting  His  teaching  to  the  conditions 
of  our  altered  lives  and  times.  Much  de- 
pended upon  the  society  and  mode  of  ex- 
pression which  belonged  to  His  era.  To 
suppose  in  these  days  that  one  has  literally 
to  give  all  to  the  poor,  or  that  a  starved 
English  prisoner  should  literally  love  his 
enemy  the  Kaiser,  or  that  because  Christ 
protested  against  the  lax  marriages  of  His 
day  therefore  two  spouses  who  loathe  each 
other  should  be  for  ever  chained  in  a  life 
servitude  and  martvrdom — all  these  asser- 
tions  are  to  travesty  His  teaching  and  to 
take  from  it  that  robust  quality  of  common 
sense  which  was  its  main  characteristic.  To 
ask  what  is  impossible  from  human  nature 
is  to  weaken  your  appeal  when  you  ask  for 
what  is  reasonable. 

It  has  already  been  stated  that  of  the  three 
headings  under  which  reforms  are  grouped, 
the  exclusion  of  the  old  dispensation,  the 
greater  attention  to  Christ's  life  as  com- 
pared to  His  death,  and  the  new  spiritual  in- 
flux which  is  giving  us  psychic  religion,  it  is 
only  on  the  latter  that  one  can  quote  the  au- 
thority of  the  beyond.    Here,  however,  the 


TWO  NEEDFUL  READJUSTMENTS      25 

case  is  really  understated.  In  regard  to  the 
Old  Testament  I  have  never  seen  the  matter 
treated  in  a  spiritual  communication.  The 
nature  of  Christ,  however,  and  His  teach- 
ing, have  been  expounded  a  score  of  times 
with  some  variation  of  detail,  but  in  the 
main  as  reproduced  here.  Spirits  have  their 
individuality  of  view,  and  some  carry  over 
strong  earthly  prepossessions  which  they 
do  not  easily  shed;  but  reading  many  au- 
thentic spirit  communications  one  finds  that 
the  idea  of  redemption  is  hardly  ever  spoken 
of,  while  that  of  example  and  influence  is 
for  ever  insisted  upon.  In  them  Christ  is 
the  highest  spirit  known,  the  son  of  God, 
as  we  all  are,  but  nearer  to  God,  and  there- 
fore in  a  more  particular  sense  His  son.  He 
does  not,  save  in  most  rare  and  special  cases, 
meet  us  when  we  die.  Since  souls  pass  over, 
night  and  day,  at  the  rate  of  about  100  a 
minute,  this  would  seem  self-evident.  After 
a  time  we  may  be  admitted  to  His  presence, 
to  find  a  most  tender,  sympathetic  and  help- 
ful comrade  and  guide,  whose  spirit  influ- 
ences all  things  even  when  His  bodily  pres- 
ence is  not  visible,  This  is  the  general 
teaching  of  the  other  world  communications 


26  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

concerning  Christ,  the  gentle,  loving  and 
powerful  spirit  which  broods  ever  over  that 
world  wThich,  in  all  its  many  spheres,  is  His 
special  care. 

Before  passing  to  the  new  revelation,  its 
certain  proofs  and  its  definite  teaching,  let 
us  hark  back  for  a  moment  upon  the  two 
points  which  have  already  been  treated.  They 
are  not  absolutely  vital  points.  The  fresh 
developments  can  go  on  and  conquer  the 
world  without  them.  There  can  be  no  sud- 
den change  in  the  ancient  routine  of  our 
religious  habits,  nor  is  it  possible  to  con- 
ceive that  a  congress  of  theologians  could 
take  so  heroic  a  step  as  to  tear  the  Bible  in 
twain,  laying  one  half  upon  the  shelf  and 
one  upon  the  table.  Neither  is  it  to  be  ex- 
pected that  any  formal  pronouncements 
could  ever  be  made  that  the  churches  have  all 
laid  the  wrong  emphasis  upon  the  story  of 
Christ.  Moral  courage  will  not  rise  to  such 
a  height.  But  with  the  spiritual  quickening 
and  the  greater  earnestness  which  will  have 
their  roots  in  this  bloody  passion  of  man- 
kind, many  will  perceive  what  is  reasonable 
and  true,  so  that  even  if  the  Old  Testament 
should  remain,  like  some  obsolete  appendix 


TWO  NEEDFUL  READJUSTMENTS      9Tt 

in  the  animal  frame,  to  mark  a  lower  stage 
through  which  development  has  passed,  it 
will  more  and  more  be  recognised  as  a  docu- 
ment which  has  lost  all  validity  and  which 
should  no  longer  be  allowed  to  influence  hu- 
man conduct,  save  by  way  of  pointing  out 
much  which  we  may  avoid.  So  also  with  the 
teaching  of  Christ,  the  mystical  portions 
may  fade  gently  away,  as  the  grosser  views 
of  eternal  punishment  have  faded  within 
our  own  lifetime,  so  that  while  mankind  is 
hardly  aware  of  the  change  the  heresy  of  to- 
day will  become  the  commonplace  of  to- 
morrow. These  things  will  adjust  them- 
selves in  God 's  own  time.  What  is,  however, 
both  new  and  vital  are  those  fresh  develop- 
ments which  will  now  be  discussed.  In  them 
may  be  found  the  signs  of  how  the  dry  bones 
may  be  stirred,  and  how  the  mummy  may 
be  quickened  with  the  breath  of  life.  With 
the  actual  certainty  of  a  definite  life  after 
death,  and  a  sure  sense  of  responsibility  for 
our  own  spiritual  development,  a  responsi- 
bility which  cannot  be  put  upon  any  other 
shoulders,  however  exalted,  but  must  be 
borne  by  each  individual  for  himself,  there 
will   come  the   greatest  reinforcement   of 


28  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

morality  which  the  human  race  has  ever 
known.  We  are  on  the  verge  of  it  now,  but 
our  descendants  will  look  upon  the  past  cen- 
tury as  the  culmination  of  the  dark  ages 
when  man  lost  his  trust  in  God,  and  was  so 
engrossed  in  his  temporary  earth  life  that 
he  lost  all  sense  of  spiritual  reality. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT 

Some  sixty  years  ago  that  acute  thinker 
Lord  Brougham  remarked  that  in  the  clear 
sky  of  scepticism  he  saw  only  one  small 
cloud  drifting  up  and  that  was  Modern 
Spiritualism.  It  was  a  curiously  inverted 
simile,  for  one  would  surely  have  expected 
him  to  say  that  in  the  drifting  clouds  of 
scepticism  he  saw  one  patch  of  clear  sky, 
but  at  least  it  showed  how  conscious  he  was 
of  the  coming  importance  of  the  movement. 
Euskin,  too,  an  equally  agile  mind,  said  that 
his  assurance  of  immortality  depended  upon 
the  observed  facts  of  Spiritualism.  Scores, 
and  indeed  hundreds,  of  famous  names  could 
be  quoted  who  have  subscribed  the  same 
statement,  and  whose  support  would  dignify 
any  cause  upon  earth.  They  are  the  higher 
peaks  who  have  been  the  first  to  catch  the 
light,  but  the  dawn  will  spread  until  none 

29 


30  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

are  too  lowly  to  share  it.  Let  us  turn,  there- 
fore, and  inspect  this  movement  which  is 
most  certainly  destined  to  revolutionise  hu- 
man thought  and  action  as  none  other  has 
done  within  the  Christian  era.  We  shall 
look  at  it  both  in  its  strength  and  in  its 
weakness,  for  where  one  is  dealing  with  what 
one  knows  to  be  true  one  can  fearlessly  in- 
sist upon  the  whole  of  the  truth. 

The  movement  which  is  destined  to  bring 
vitality  to  the  dead  and  cold  religions  has 
been  called  "Modern  Spiritualism."  The 
"modern"  is  good,  since  the  thing  itself,  in 
one  form  or  another,  is  as  old  as  history,  and 
has  always,  however  obscured  by  forms,  been 
the  red  central  glow  in  the  depths  of  all 
religious  ideas,  permeating  the  Bible  from 
end  to  end.  But  the  word  "Spiritualism" 
has  been  so  befouled  by  wicked  charlatans, 
and  so  cheapened  by  many  a  sad  incident, 
that  one  could  almost  wish  that  some  such 
term  as  "psychic  religion"  would  clear  the 
subject  of  old  prejudices,  just  as  mesmerism, 
after  many  years  of  obloquy,  was  rapidly  ac- 
cepted when  its  name  was  changed  to  hyp- 
notism. On  the  other  hand,  one  remembers 
the  sturdy  pioneers  who  have  fought  under 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        SI 

this  banner,  and  who  were  prepared  to  risk 
their  careers,  their  professional  success,  and 
even  their  reputation  for  sanity,  by  publicly 
asserting  what  they  knew  to  be  the  truth. 
Their  brave,  unselfish  devotion  must  do 
something  to  cleanse  the  name  for  which 
they  fought  and  suffered.  It  was  they  who 
nursed  the  system  which  promises  to  be,  not 
a  new  religion — it  is  far  too  big  for  that — 
but  part  of  the  common  heritage  of  knowl- 
edge shared  by  the  whole  human  race.  Per- 
fected Spiritualism,  however,  will  probably 
bear  about  the  same  relation  to  the  Spiritu- 
alism of  1850  as  a  modern  locomotive  to  the 
bubbling  little  kettle  which  heralded  the 
era  of  steam.  It  will  end  by  being  rather 
the  proof  and  basis  of  all  religions  than  a 
religion  in  itself.  We  have  already  too  many 
religions — but  too  few  proofs. 

Those  first  manifestations  at  Hydesville 
varied  in  no  way  from  many  of  which  we 
have  record  in  the  past,  but  the  result  aris- 
ing from  them  differed  very  much,  because, 
for  the  first  time,  it  occurred  to  a  human 
being  not  merely  to  listen  to  inexplicable 
sounds,  and  to  fear  them  or  marvel  at  them, 
but  to  establish  communication  with  them. 


32  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

John  Wesley's  father  might  have  done  the 
same  more  than  a  century  before  had  the 
thought  occurred  to  him  when  he  was  a  wit- 
ness of  the  manifestations  at  Epworth  in 
1726.  It  was  only  when  the  young  Fox  girl 
struck  her  hands  together  and  cried  "Do 
as  I  do"  that  there  was  instant  compliance, 
and  consequent  proof  of  the  presence  of  an 
intelligent  invisible  force,  thus  differing 
from  all  other  forces  of  which  we  know.  The 
circumstances  were  humble,  and  even  rather 
sordid,  upon  both  sides  of  the  veil,  human 
and  spirit,  yet  it  was,  as  time  will  more  and 
more  clearly  show,  one  of  the  turning  points 
of  the  world's  history,  greater  far  than  the 
fall  of  thrones  or  the  rout  of  armies.  Some 
artist  of  the  future  will  draw  the  scene — 
the  sitting-room  of  the  wooden,  shack-like 
house,  the  circle  of  half -awed  and  half-criti- 
cal neighbours,  the  child  clapping  her  hands 
with  upturned  laughing  face,  the  dark  cor- 
ner shadows  where  these  strange  new  forces 
seem  to  lurk — forces  often  apparent,  and 
now  come  to  stay  and  to  effect  the  complete 
revolution  of  human  thought.  We  may  well 
ask  why  should  such  great  results  arise  from 
such  petty  sources?    So  argued  the  high- 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        33 

browed  philosophers  of  Greece  and  Rome 
when  the  outspoken  Paul,  with  the  fisher- 
man Peter  and  his  half -educated  disciples, 
traversed  all  their  learned  theories,  and  with 
the  help  of  women,  slaves,  and  schismatic 
Jews,  subverted  their  ancient  creeds.  One 
can  but  answer  that  Providence  has  its  own 
way  of  attaining  its  results,  and  that  it  sel- 
dom conforms  to  our  opinion  of  what  is  most 
appropriate. 

We  have  a  larger  experience  of  such  phe- 
nomena now,  and  we  can  define  with  some 
accuracy  what  it  was  that  happened  at 
Hydesville  in  the  year  1848.  We  know  that 
these  matters  are  governed  by  law  and  by 
conditions  as  much  as  any  other  phenomena 
of  the  universe,  though  at  the  moment  it 
seemed  to  the  public  to  be  an  isolated  and 
irregular  outburst.  On  the  one  hand,  you 
had  a  material,  earth-bound  spirit  of  a  low 
order  of  development  which  needed  a  physi- 
cal medium  in  order  to  be  able  to  indicate 
its  presence.  On  the  other,  you  had  that  rare 
thing,  a  good  physical  medium.  The  result 
followed  as  surely  as  the  flash  follows  when 
the  electric  battery  and  wire  are  both  prop- 
erly adjusted.    Corresponding  experiments, 


34  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

where  effect  and  cause  duly  follow,  are  be- 
ing worked  out  at  the  present  moment  by 
Professor  Crawford,  of  Belfast,  as  detailed 
in  his  two  recent  books,  where  he  shows  that 
there  is  an  actual  loss  of  weight  of  the  me- 
dium in  exact  proportion  to  the  physical 
phenomenon  produced.*     The  whole  secret 
of  mediumship  on  this  material  side  appears 
to  lie  in  the  power,  quite  independent  of 
oneself,  of  passively  giving  up  some  portion 
of  one's  bodily  substance  for  the  use  of  out- 
side influences.    Why  should  some  have  this 
power  and  some  not?    We  do  not  know — 
nor  do  we  know  why  one  should  have  the 
ear  for  music  and  another  not.    Each  is  born 
in  us,  and  each  has  little  connection  with  our 
moral  natures.    At  first  it  was  only  physical 
mediumship  which  was  known,  and  public 
attention  centred  upon  moving  tables,  auto- 
matic musical  instruments,  and  other  crude 
but  obvious  examples  of  outside  influence, 
which  were  unhappily  very  easily  imitated 
by  rogues.    Since  then  we  have  learned  that 
there  are  many  forms  of  mediumship,  so 
different  from  each  other  that  an  expert  at 

*  ' '  The  Reality  of  Psychic  Phenomena. ' ' 
"Experiences  in  Psyehical  Science."    (WatMns.) 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        35 

one  may  have  no  powers  at  all  at  the  other. 
The  automatic  writer,  the  clairvoyant,  the 
crystal-seer,  the  trance  speaker,  the  photo- 
graphic medium,  the  direct  voice  medium, 
and  others,  are  all,  when  genuine,  the  mani- 
festations of  one  force,  which  runs  through 
varied  channels  as  it  did  in  the  gifts  ascribed 
to  the  disciples.  The  unhappy  outburst  of 
roguery  was  helped,  no  doubt,  by  the  need 
for  darkness  claimed  by  the  early  experi- 
menters— a  claim  which  is  by  no  means  es- 
sential, since  the  greatest  of  all  mediums, 
D.  D.  Home,  was  able  by  the  exceptional 
strength  of  his  powers  to  dispense  with  it. 
At  the  same  time  the  fact  that  darkness 
rather  than  light,  and  dryness  rather  than 
moisture,  are  helpful  to  good  results  has  been 
abundantly  manifested,  and  points  to  the 
physical  laws  which  underlie  the  phenomena. 
The  observation  made  long  afterwards  that 
wireless  telegraphy,  another  etheric  force, 
acts  twice  as  well  by  night  as  by  day,  may 
corroborate  the  general  conclusions  of  the 
early  Spiritualists,  while  their  assertion  that 
the  least  harmful  light  is  red  light  has  a 
suggestive  analogy  in  the  experience  of  the 
photographer. 


36  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

There  is  no  space  here  for  the  history  of 
the  rise  and  development  of  the  movement. 
It  provoked  warm  adhesion  and  fierce  op- 
position from  the  start.  Professor  Hare 
and  Horace  Greeley  were  among  the  edu- 
cated minority  who  tested  and  endorsed  its 
truth.  It  was  disfigured  by  many  grievous 
incidents,  which  may  explain  but  does  not 
excuse  the  perverse  opposition  which  it  en- 
countered in  so  many  quarters.  This  oppo- 
sition was  really  largely  based  upon  the  ab- 
solute materialism  of  the  age,  which  would 
not  admit  that  there  could  exist  at  the  pres- 
ent moment  such  conditions  as  might  be  ac- 
cepted in  the  far  past.  When  actually 
brought  in  contact  with  that  life  beyond  the 
grave  which  they  professed  to  believe  in, 
these  people  winced,  recoiled,  and  declared 
it  impossible.  The  science  of  the  day  was 
also  rooted  in  materialism,  and  discarded  all 
its  own  very  excellent  axioms  when  it  was 
faced  by  an  entirely  new  and  unexpected 
proposition.  Faraday  declared  that  in  ap- 
proaching a  new  subject  one  should  make  up 
one's  mind  a  priori  as  to  what  is  possible 
and  what  is  not !  Huxley  said  that  the  mes- 
sages, even  if  trite,  "  interested  him  no  more 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        37 

than  the  gossip  of  curates  in  a  cathedral 
city."  Darwin  said:  "God  help  us  if  we 
are  to  believe  such  things."  Herbert 
Spencer  declared  against  it,  but  had  no  time 
to  go  into  it.  At  the  same  time  all  science 
did  not  come  so  badly  out  of  the  ordeal. 
As  already  mentioned,  Professor  Hare,  of 
Philadelphia,  inventor,  among  other  things, 
of  the  oxy-hydrogen  blow-pipe,  was  the  first 
man  of  note  who  had  the  moral  courage,  af- 
ter considerable  personal  investigation,  to 
declare  that  these  new  and  strange  develop- 
ments were  true.  He  was  followed  by  many 
medical  men,  both  in  America  and  in 
Britain,  including  Dr.  EUiotson,  one  of  the 
leaders  of  free  thought  in  this  country.  Pro- 
fessor Crookes,  the  most  rising  chemist  in 
Europe,  Dr.  Eussel  Wallace  the  great 
naturalist,  Varley  the  electrician,  Mamma- 
rion  the  French  astronomer,  and  many 
others,  risked  their  scientific  reputations  in 
their  brave  assertions  of  the  truth.  These 
men  were  not  credulous  fools.  They  saw 
and  deplored  the  existence  of  frauds. 
Crookes'  letters  upon  the  subject  are  still 
extant.  In  very  many  cases  it  was  the 
Spiritualists  themselves  who   exposed  the 


38  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

frauds.  They  laughed,  as  the  public 
laughed,  at  the  sham  Shakespeares  and  vul- 
gar Caesars  who  figured  in  certain  seance 
rooms.  They  deprecated  also  the  low  moral 
tone  which  would  turn  such  powers  to 
prophecies  about  the  issue  of  a  race  or  the 
success  of  a  speculation.  But  they  had  that 
broader  vision  and  sense  of  proportion  which 
assured  them  that  behind  all  these  follies 
and  frauds  there  lay  a  mass  of  solid  evi- 
dence which  could  not  be  shaken,  though  like 
all  evidence,  it  had  to  be  examined  before  it 
could  be  appreciated.  They  were  not  such 
simpletons  as  to  be  driven  away  from  a 
great  truth  because  there  are  some  dishon- 
est camp  followers  who  hang  upon  its  skirts. 
A  great  centre  of  proof  and  of  inspira- 
tion lay  during  those  early  days  in  Mr.  D.  D. 
Home,  a  Scottish- American,  who  possessed 
powers  which  make  him  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  personalities  of  whom  we  have 
any  record.  Home's  life,  written  by  his  sec- 
ond wife,  is  a  book  which  deserves  very  care- 
ful reading.  This  man,  who  in  some  aspects 
was  more  than  a  man,  was  before  the  public 
for  nearly  thirty  years.  During  that  time 
he  never  received  payment  for  his  services, 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        39 

and  was  always  ready  to  put  himself  at  the 
disposal  of  any  bond-fide  and  reasonable  en- 
quirer. His  phenomena  were  produced  in 
full  light,  and  it  was  immaterial  to  him 
whether  the  sittings  were  in  his  own  rooms 
or  in  those  of  his  friends.  So  high  were  his 
principles  that  upon  one  occasion,  though 
he  was  a  man  of  moderate  means  and  less 
than  moderate  health,  he  refused  the  prince- 
ly fee  of  two  thousand  pounds  offered  for  a 
single  sitting  by  the  Union  Circle  in  Paris. 
As  to  his  powers,  they  seem  to  have  included 
every  form  of  mediumship  in  the  highest 
degree — self-levitation,  as  witnessed  by 
hundreds  of  credible  witnesses;  the  han- 
dling of  fire,  with  the  power  of  conferring 
like  immunity  upon  others;  the  movement 
without  human  touch  of  heavy  objects;  the 
visible  materialisation  of  spirits;  miracles 
of  healing;  and  messages  from  the  dead, 
such  as  that  which  converted  the  hard- 
headed  Scot,  Robert  Chambers,  when  Home 
repeated  to  him  the  actual  dying  words  of 
his  young  daughter.  All  this  came  from  a 
man  of  so  sweet  a  nature  and  of  so  charitable 
a  disposition,  that  the  union  of  all  qualities 


40  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

would  seem  almost  to  justify  those  who,  to 
Home's  great  embarrassment,  were  pre- 
pared to  place  him  upon  a  pedestal  above 
humanity. 

The  genuineness  of  his  psychic  powers 
has  never  been  seriously  questioned,  and  was 
as  well  recognised  in  Rome  and  Paris  as  in 
London.  One  incident  only  darkened  his 
career,  and  it  was  one  in  which  he  was  blame- 
less, as  anyone  who  carefully  weighs  the 
evidence  must  admit.  I  allude  to  the  action 
taken  against  him  by  Mrs.  Lyon,  who,  after 
adopting  him  as  her  son  and  settling  a  large 
sum  of  money  upon  him,  endeavoured  to 
regain,  and  did  regain,  this  money  by  her 
unsupported  assertion  that  he  had  per- 
suaded her  illicitly  to  make  him  the  allow- 
ance. The  facts  of  his  life  are,  in  my  judg- 
ment, ample  proof  of  the  truth  of  the 
Spiritualist  position,  if  no  other  proof  at 
all  had  been  available.  It  is  to  be  remarked 
in  the  career  of  this  entirely  honest  and  un- 
venal  medium  that  he  had  periods  in  his  life 
when  his  powers  deserted  him  completely, 
that  he  could  foresee  these  lapses,  and  that, 
being  honest  and  unvenal,  he  simply  ab- 
stained from  all  attempts  until  the  power 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        41 

returned.  It  is  this  intermittent  character 
of  the  gift  which  is,  in  my  opinion,  responsi- 
ble for  cases  when  a  medium  who  has  passed 
the  most  rigid  tests  upon  certain  occasions 
is  afterwards  detected  in  simulating,  very 
clumsily,  the  results  which  he  had  once  suc- 
cessfully accomplished.  The  real  power  hav- 
ing failed,  he  has  not  the  moral  courage  to 
admit  it,  nor  the  self-denial  to  forego  his  fee 
which  he  endeavours  to  earn  by  a  travesty 
of  wrhat  was  once  genuine.  Such  an  ex- 
planation would  cover  some  facts  which 
otherwise  are  hard  to  reconcile.  We  must 
also  admit  that  some  mediums  are  extreme- 
ly irresponsible  and  feather-headed  people. 
A  friend  of  mine,  who  sat  with  Eusapia 
Palladino,  assured  me  that  he  saw  her  cheat 
in  the  most  childish  and  bare-faced  fashion, 
and  yet  immediately  afterwards  incidents 
occurred  which  were  absolutely  beyond  any 
normal  powers  to  produce. 

Apart  from  Home,  another  episode  which 
marks  a  stage  in  the  advance  of  this  move- 
ment was  the  investigation  and  report  by  the 
Dialectical  Society  in  the  year  1869.  This 
body  was  composed  of  men  of  various 
learned  professions  who  gathered  together  to 


42  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

investigate  the  alleged  facts,  and  ended  by 
reporting  that  they  really  were  facts.  They 
were  unbiased,  and  their  conclusions  were 
founded  upon  results  which  were  very  sober- 
ly set  forth'  in  their  report,  a  most  convinc- 
ing document  which,  even  now  in  1919,  after 
the  lapse  of  fifty  years,  is  far  more  intelli- 
gent than  the  greater  part  of  current  opinion 
upon  this  subject.  None  the  less,  it  was 
greeted  by  a  chorus  of  ridicule  by  the  igno- 
rant Press  of  that  day,  who,  if  the  same  men 
had  come  to  the  opposite  conclusion  in  spite 
of  the  evidence,  would  have  been  ready  to 
hail  their  verdict  as  the  undoubted  end  of 
a  pernicious  movement. 

In  the  early  days,  about  1863,  a  book  was 
written  by  Mrs.  de  Morgan,  the  wife  of 
the  well-known  mathematician  Professor 
de  Morgan,  entitled  "From  Matter  to 
Spirit. ' '  There  is  a  sympathetic  preface  by 
the  husband.  The  book  is  still  well  worth 
reading,  for  it  is  a  question  whether  any- 
one has  shown  greater  brain  power  in  treat- 
ing the  subject.  In  it  the  prophecy  is  made 
that  as  the  movement  develops  the  more  ma- 
terial phenomena  will  decrease  and  their 
place  be  taken  by  the  more  spiritual,  such 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        43 

as  automatic  writing.  This  forecast  has 
been  fulfilled,  for  though  physical  mediums 
still  exist  the  other  more  subtle  forms  great- 
ly predominate,  and  call  for  far  more  dis- 
criminating criticism  in  judging  their  value 
and  their  truth.  Two  very  convincing  forms 
of  mediumship,  the  direct  voice  and  spirit 
photography,  have  also  become  prominent. 
Each  of  these  presents  such  proof  that  it  is 
impossible  for  the  sceptic  to  face  them,  and 
he  can  only  avoid  them  by  ignoring  them. 

In  the  case  of  the  direct  voice  one  of  the 
leading  exponents  is  Mrs.  French,  an  ama- 
teur medium  in  America,  whose  work  is 
described  both  by  Mr.  Funk  and  Mr.  Ran- 
dall. She  is  a  frail  elderly  lady,  yet  in  her 
presence  the  most  masculine  and  robust 
voices  make  communications,  even  when  her 
own  mouth  is  covered.  I  have  myself  inves- 
tigated the  direct  voice  in  the  case  of  four 
different  mediums,  two  of  them  amateurs, 
and  can  have  no  doubt  of  the  reality  of  the 
voices,  and  that  they  are  not  the  effect  of 
ventriloquism.  I  was  more  struck  by  the 
failures  than  by  the  successes,  and  cannot 
easily  forget  the  passionate  pantings  with 
which  some  entity  strove  hard  to  reveal  his 


M  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

identity  to  me,  but  without  success.  One  of 
these  mediums  was  tested  afterwards  by 
having  the  mouth  filled  with  coloured  water, 
but  the  voices  continued  as  before. 

As  to  spirit  photography,  the  most  suc- 
cessful results  are  obtained  by  the  Crewe 
circle  in  England,  under  the  mediumship  of 
Mr.  Hope  and  Mrs.  Buxton.*  I  have  seen 
scores  of  these  photographs,  which  in  sev- 
eral cases  reproduce  exact  images  of  the 
dead  which  do  not  correspond  with  any  pic- 
tures of  them  taken  during  life.  I  have 
seen  father,  mother,  and  dead  soldier  son, 
all  taken  together  with  the  dead  son  looking 
far  the  happier  and  not  the  least  substan- 
tial of  the  three.  It  is  in  these  varied  forms 
of  proof  that  the  impregnable  strength  of 
the  evidence  lies,  for  how  absurd  do  explana- 
tions of  telepathy,  unconscious  cerebration 
or  cosmic  memory  become  when  faced  by 
such  phenomena  as  spirit  photography,  ma- 
terialisation, or  the  direct  voice.  Only  one 
hypothesis  can  cover  every  branch  of  these 
manifestations,  and  that  is  the  system  of  ex- 
traneous life  and  action  which  has  always, 
for  seventy  years,  held  the  field  for  any 

*See  Appendix. 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        45 

reasonable  mind  which  had  impartially  con- 
sidered the  facts. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  need  for  careful  and 
cool-headed  analysis  in  judging  the  evidence 
where  automatic  writing  is  concerned.  One 
is  bound  to  exclude  spirit  explanations  un- 
til all  natural  ones  have  been  exhausted, 
though  I  do  not  include  among  natural  ones 
the  extreme  claims  of  far-fetched  telepathy 
such  as  that  another  person  can  read  in  your 
thoughts  things  of  which  you  were  never 
yourself  aware.  Such  explanations  are  not 
explanations,  but  mystifications  and  ab- 
surdities, though  they  seem  to  have  a  spe- 
cial attraction  for  a  certain  sort  of  psychical 
researcher,  who  is  obviously  destined  to  go 
on  researching  to  the  end  of  time,  without 
ever  reaching  any  conclusion  save  that  of 
the  patience  of  those  who  try  to  follow  his 
reasoning.  To  give  a  good  example  of  valid 
automatic  script,  chosen  out  of  many  which 
I  could  quote,  I  would  draw  the  reader's  at- 
tention to  the  facts  as  to  the  excavations  at 
Glastonbury,  as  detailed  in  "The  Gate  of 
Remembrance"  by  Mr.  Bligh  Bond.  Mr. 
Bligh  Bond,  by  the  way,  is  not  a  Spiritualist, 
but  the  same  cannot  be  said  of  the  writer 


46  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

of  the  automatic  script,  an  amateur  medium, 
who  was  able  to  indicate  the  secrets  of  the 
buried  abbey,  which  were  proved  to  be  cor- 
rect when  the  ruins  were  uncovered.  I  can 
truly  say  that,  though  I  have  read  much 
of  the  old  monastic  life,  it  has  never  been 
brought  home  to  me  so  closely  as  by  the  mes- 
sages and  descriptions  of  dear  old  Brother 
Johannes,  the  earth-bound  spirit — earth- 
bound  by  his  great  love  for  the  old  abbey  in 
which  he  had  spent  his  human  life.  This 
book,  with  its  practical  sequel,  may  be 
quoted  as  an  excellent  example  of  automatic 
writing  at  its  highest,  for  what  telepathic 
explanation  can  cover  the  detailed  descrip- 
tion of  objects  which  lie  unseen  by  any  hu- 
man eye?  It  must  be  admitted,  however, 
that  in  automatic  writing  you  are  at  one  end 
of  the  telephone,  if  one  may  use  such  a  simile, 
and  you  have  no  assurance  as  to  who  is  at  the 
other  end.  You  may  have  wildly  false  mes- 
sages suddenly  interpolated  among  truthful 
ones — messages  so  detailed  in  their  men- 
dacity that  it  is  impossible  to  think  that  they 
are  not  deliberately  false.  When  once  we 
have  accepted  the  central  fact  that  spirits 
change  little  in  essentials  when  leaving  the 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT        47 

body,  and  that  in  consequence  the  world  is 
infested    by    many    low    and    mischievous 
types,  one  can  understand  that  these  unto- 
ward incidents  are  rather  a  confirmation  of 
Spiritualism  than  an  argument  against  it. 
Personally  I  have  received  and  have  been 
deceived  by  several  such  messages.    At  the 
same  time  I  can  say  that  after  an  experience 
of  thirty  years  of  such  communications  I 
have  never  known  a  blasphemous,  an  ob- 
scene or  an  unkind  sentence  come  through. 
I  admit,  however,  that  I  have  heard  of  such 
cases.     Like  attracts  like,  and  one  should 
know  one's  human  company  before  one  joins 
in  such  intimate   and   reverent  rites.     In 
clairvoyance  the  same  sudden  inexplicable 
deceptions  appear.    I  have  closely  followed 
the  work  of  one  female  medium,  a  profes- 
sional, whose  results  are  so  extraordinarily 
good  that  in  a  favourable  case  she  will  give 
the  full  names  of  the  deceased  as  well  as  the 
most  definite  and  convincing  test  messages. 
Yet  among  this  splendid  series  of  results  I 
have  notes  of  several  in  which  she  was  a 
complete  failure  and  absolutely  wrong  upon 
essentials.    How  can  this  be  explained?    We 
can  only  answer  that  conditions  were  ob- 


48  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

viously  not  propitious,  but  why  or  how  are 
among  the  many  problems  of  the  future. 
It  is  a  profound  and  most  complicated  sub- 
ject, however  easily  it  may  be  settled  by  the 
" ridiculous  nonsense"  school  of  critics.  I 
look  at  the  row  of  books  upon  the  left  of  my 
desk  as  I  write — ninety-six  solid  volumes, 
many  of  them  annotated  and  well  thumbed, 
and  yet  I  know  that  I  am  like  a  child  wading 
ankle  deep  in  the  margin  of  an  illimitable 
ocean.  But  this,  at  least,  I  have  very  clearly 
realised,  that  the  ocean  is  there  and  that  the 
margin  is  part  of  it,  and  that  down  that 
shelving  shore  the  human  race  is  destined 
to  move  slowly  to  deeper  waters.  In  the  next 
chapter,  I  will  endeavour  to  show  what  is 
the  purpose  of  the  Creator  in  this  strange 
revelation  of  new  intelligent  forces  imping- 
ing upon  our  planet.  It  is  this  view  of  the 
question  which  must  justify  the  claim  that 
this  movement,  so  long  the  subject  of  sneers 
and  ridicule,  is  absolutely  the  most  impor- 
tant development  in  the  whole  history  of  the 
human  race,  so  important  that  if  we  could 
conceive  one  single  man  discovering  and 
publishing  it,  he  would  rank  before  Chris- 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT       49 

topher  Columbus  as  a  discoverer  of  new 
worlds,  before  Paul  as  a  teacher  of  new  re- 
ligious truths,  and  before  Isaac  Newton  as 
a  student  of  the  laws  of  the  Universe. 

Before  opening  up  this  subject  there  is 
one  consideration  which  should  have  due 
weight,  and  yet  seems  continually  to  be  over- 
looked. The  differences  between  various 
sects  are  a  very  small  thing  as  compared  to 
the  great  eternal  duel  between  materialism 
and  the  spiritual  view  of  the  Universe.  That 
is  the  real  fight.  It  is  a  fight  in  which  the 
Churches  championed  the  anti-material 
view,  but  they  have  done  it  so  unintelligently, 
and  have  been  continually  placed  in  such 
false  positions,  that  they  have  always  been 
losing.  Since  the  days  of  Hume  and  Vol- 
taire and  Gibbon  the  fight  has  slowly  but 
steadily  rolled  in  favour  of  the  attack.  Then 
came  Darwin,  showing  with  apparent  truth, 
that  man  has  never  fallen  but  always  risen. 
This  cut  deep  into  the  philosophy  of  ortho- 
doxy, and  it  is  folly  to  deny  it.  Then  again 
came  the  so-called  "  Higher  Criticism, " 
showing  alleged  flaws  and  cracks  in  the  very 
foundations.  All  this  time  the  churches 
were  yielding  ground,  and  every  retreat  gave 


50  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

a  fresh  jumping-off  place  for  a  new  assault. 
It  has  gone  so  far  that  at  the  present  mo- 
ment a  very  large  section  of  the  people  of 
this  country,  rich  and  poor,  are  out  of  all 
sympathy  not  only  with  the  churches  but 
with  the  whole  Spiritual  view.  Now,  we  in- 
tervene with  our  positive  knowledge  and 
actual  proof — an  ally  so  powerful  that  we 
are  capable  of  turning  the  whole  tide  of  bat- 
tle and  rolling  it  back  for  ever  against  ma- 
terialism. We  can  say:  "We  will  meet  you 
on  your  own  ground  and  show  you  by  ma- 
terial and  scientific  tests  that  the  soul  and 
personality  survive."  That  is  the  aim  of 
Psychic  Science,  and  it  has  been  fully  at- 
tained. It  means  an  end  to  materialism  for 
ever.  And  yet  this  movement,  this  Spiritual 
movement,  is  hooted  at  and  reviled  by  Eome, 
by  Canterbury  and  even  by  Little  Bethel, 
each  of  them  for  once  acting  in  concert,  and 
including  in  their  battle  line  such  strange 
allies  as  the  Scientific  Agnostics  and  the 
militant  Free-thinkers.  Father  Vaughan 
and  the  Bishop  of  London,  the  Rev.  F.  B. 
Meyer  and  Mr.  Clodd,  "The  Church  Times" 
and  "The  Freethinker,"  are  united  in  battle, 
though  they  fight  with  very  different  battle 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  LIGHT       51 

cries,  the  one  declaring  that  the  thing  is  of 
the  devil,  while  the  other  is  equally  clear 
that  it  does  not  exist  at  all.  The  opposition 
of  the  materialists  is  absolutely  intelligent 
since  it  is  clear  that  any  man  who  has  spent 
his  life  in  saying  "No"  to  all  extramundane 
forces  is,  indeed,  in  a  pitiable  position  when, 
after  many  years,  he  has  to  recognise  that 
his  whole  philosophy  is  built  upon  sand  and 
that  "Yes"  was  the  answer  from  the  be- 
ginning. But  as  to  the  religious  bodies, 
what  words  can  express  their  stupidity  and 
want  of  all  proportion  in  not  running  half- 
way and  more  to  meet  the  greatest  ally  who 
has  ever  intervened  to  change  their  defeat 
into  victory?  What  gifts  this  all-powerful 
ally  brings  with  him,  and  what  are  the  terms 
of  his  alliance,  will  now  be  considered. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   GREAT   ARGUMENT 

The  physical  basis  of  all  psychic  belief 
is  that  the  soul  is  a  complete  duplicate  of  the 
body,  resembling  it  in  the  smallest  particu- 
lar, although  constructed  in  some  far  more 
tenuous  material.  In  ordinary  conditions 
these  two  bodies  are  intermingled  so  that  the 
identity  of  the  finer  one  is  entirely  obscured. 
At  death,  however,  and  under  certain  condi- 
tions in  the  course  of  life,  the  two  divide 
and  can  be  seen  separately.  Death  differs 
from  the  conditions  of  separation  before 
death  in  that  there  is  a  complete  break  be- 
tween the  two  bodies,  and  life  is  carried  on 
entirely  by  the  lighter  of  the  two,  while  the 
heavier,  like  a  cocoon  from  which  the  living 
occupant  has  escaped,  degenerates  and  dis- 
appears, the  world  burying  the  cocoon  with 
much  solemnity  by  taking  little  pains  to 
ascertain  what  has  become  of  its  nobler 

52 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  53 

contents.  It  is  a  vain  thing  to  urge  that 
science  has  not  admitted  this  contention,  and 
that  the  statement  is  pure  dogmatism.  The 
science  which  has  not  examined  the  facts 
has,  it  is  true,  not  admitted  the  contention, 
but  its  opinion  is  manifestly  worthless,  or 
at  the  best  of  less  weight  than  that  of  the 
humblest  student  of  psychic  phenomena. 
The  real  science  which  has  examined  the 
facts  is  the  only  valid  authority,  and  it  is 
practically  unanimous.  I  have  made  per- 
sonal appeals  to  at  least  one  great  leader  of 
science  to  examine  the  facts,  however  super- 
ficially, without  any  success,  while  Sir  Wil- 
liam Crookes  appealed  to  Sir  George  Stokes, 
the  Secretary  of  the  Roya?  Society,  one  of 
the  most  bitter  opponents  of  the  movement, 
to  come  down  to  his  laboratory  and  see  the 
psychic  force  at  work,  but  he  took  no  no- 
tice. What  weight  has  science  of  that  sort  f 
It  can  only  be  compared  to  that  theological 
prejudice  which  caused  the  Ecclesiastics  in 
the  days  of  Galileo  to  refuse  to  look  through 
the  telescope  which  he  held  out  to  them. 

It  is  possible  to  write  down  the  names  of 
fifty  professors  in  great  seats  of  learning 
who  have  examined  and  endorsed  these  facts, 


54  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

and  the  list  would  include  many  of  the  great- 
est intellects  which  the  world  has  produced 
in  our  time — Flammarion  and  Lombroso, 
Charles  Kichet  and  Russel  Wallace,  Willie 
Reichel,  Myers,  Zollner,  James,  Lodge,  and 
Crookes.  Therefore  the  facts  have  been  en- 
dorsed by  the  only  science  that  has  the  right 
to  express  an  opinion.  I  have  never,  in  my 
thirty  years  of  experience,  known  one  sin- 
gle scientific  man  who  went  thoroughly  into 
this  matter  and  did  not  end  by  accepting  the 
Spiritual  solution.  Such  may  exist,  but  I 
repeat  that  I  have  never  heard  of  him.  Let 
us,  then,  with  confidence  examine  this  mat- 
ter of  the  " spiritual  body,"  to  use  the  term 
made  classical  by  Saint  Paul.  There  are 
many  signs  in  his  writings  that  Paul  was 
deeply  versed  in  psychic  matters,  and  one 
of  these  is  his  exact  definition  of  the  natural 
and  spiritual  bodies  in  the  service  which  is 
the  final  farewell  to  life  of  every  Christian. 
Paul  picked  his  words,  and  if  he  had  meant 
that  man  consisted  of  a  natural  body  and  a 
spirit  he  would  have  said  so.  When  he  said 
"a  spiritual  body"  he  meant  a  body  which 
contained  the  spirit  and  yet  was  distinct 
from  the  ordinary  natural  body.     That  is 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  65 

exactly  what  psychic  science  has  now  shown 
to  be  true. 

When  a  man  has  taken  hashish  or  cer- 
tain other  drugs,  he  not  infrequently  has  the 
experience  that  he  is  standing  or  floating  be- 
side his  own  body,  which  he  can  see  stretched 
senseless  upon  the  couch.  So  also  under 
anaesthetics,  particularly  under  laughing 
gas,  many  people  are  conscious  of  a  detach- 
ment from  their  bodies,  and  of  experiences 
at  a  distance.  I  have  myself  seen  very  clear- 
ly my  wife  and  children  inside  a  cab  while 
I  was  senseless  in  the  dentist's  chair.  Again, 
when  a  man  is  fainting  or  dying,  and  his 
system  in  an  unstable  condition,  it  is  as- 
serted in  very  many  definite  instances  that 
he  can,  and  does,  manifest  himself  to  others 
at  a  distance.  These  phantasms  of  the  liv- 
ing, which  have  been  so  carefully  explored 
and  docketed  by  Messrs.  Myers  and  Gurney, 
ran  into  hundreds  of  cases.  Some  people 
claim  that  by  an  effort  of  will  they  can,  after 
going  to  sleep,  propel  their  own  doubles  in 
the  direction  which  they  desire,  and  visit 
those  whom  they  wish  to  see.  Thus  there  is 
a  great  volume  of  evidence — how  great  no 
man  can  say  who  has  not  spent  diligent 


56  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

years  in  exploring  it — which  vouches  for  the 
existence  of  this  finer  body  containing  the 
precious  jewels  of  the  mind  and  spirit,  and 
leaving  only  gross  confused  animal  func- 
tions in  its  heavier  companion. 

Mr.  Funk,  who  is  a  critical  student  of 
psychic  phenomena,  and  also  the  joint  com- 
piler of  the  standard  American  dictionary, 
narrates  a  story  in  point  which  could  be 
matched  from  other  sources.  He  tells  of  an 
American  doctor  of  his  acquaintance,  and 
he  vouches  personally  for  the  truth  of  the 
incident.  This  doctor,  in  the  course  of  a 
cataleptic  seizure  in  Florida,  was  aware  that 
he  had  left  his  body,  which  he  saw  lying  be- 
side him.  He  had  none  the  less  preserved 
his  figure  and  his  identity.  The  thought  of 
some  friend  at  a  distance  came  into  his  mind, 
and  after  an  appreciable  interval  he  found 
himself  in  that  friend's  room,  half  way 
across  the  continent.  He  saw  his  friend,  and 
was  conscious  that  his  friend  saw  him.  He 
afterwards  returned  to  his  own  room,  stood 
beside  his  own  senseless  body,  argued  with- 
in himself  whether  he  should  re-occupy  it 
or  not,  and  finally,  duty  overcoming  inclina- 
tion, he  merged  his  two  frames  together  and 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  57 

continued  his  life.  A  letter  from  Mm  to  his 
friend  explaining  matters  crossed  a  letter 
from  the  friend,  in  which  he  told  how  he  also 
had  been  aware  of  his  presence.  The  in- 
cident is  narrated  in  detail  in  Mr.  Funk's 
" Psychic  Riddle." 

I  do  not  understand  how  any  man  can  ex- 
amine the  many  instances  coming  from  va- 
rious angles  of  approach  without  recognis- 
ing that  there  really  is  a  second  body  of  this 
sort,  which  incidentally  goes  far  to  account 
for  all  stories,  sacred  or  profane,  of  ghosts, 
apparitions  and  visions.  Now,  what  is  this 
second  body,  and  how  does  it  fit  into  modern 
religious  revelation? 

What  it  is,  is  a  difficult  question,  and  yet 
when  science  and  imagination  unite,  as  Tyn- 
dall  said  they  should  unite,  to  throw  a  search- 
light into  the  unknown,  they  may  produce  a 
beam  sufficient  to  outline  vaguely  what  will 
become  clearer  with  the  future  advance  of 
our  race.  Science  has  demonstrated  that 
while  ether  pervades  everything  the  ether 
which  is  actually  in  a  body  is  different  from 
the  ether  outside  it.  " Bound"  ether  is  the 
name  given  to  this,  which  Fresnel  and  others 
have  shown  to  be  denser.    Now,  if  this  fact 


58  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

be  applied  to  the  human  body,  the  result 
would  be  that,  if  all  that  is  visible  of  that 
body  were  removed,  there  would  still  re- 
main a  complete  and  absolute  mould  of  the 
body,  formed  in  bound  ether  which  would 
be  different  from  the  ether  around  it.  This 
argument  is  more  solid  than  mere  specula- 
tion, and  it  shows  that  even  the  soul  may 
come  to  be  defined  in  terms  of  matter  and  is 
not  altogether  "such  stuff  as  dreams  are 
made  of." 

It  has  been  shown  that  there  is  some  good 
evidence  for  the  existence  of  this  second 
body  apart  from  psychic  religion,  but  to 
those  who  have  examined  that  religion  it  is 
the  centre  of  the  whole  system,  sufficiently 
real  to  be  recognised  by  clairvoyants,  to  be 
heard  by  clairaudients,  and  even  to  make  an 
exact  impression  upon  a  photographic  plate. 
Of  the  latter  phenomenon,  of  which  I  have 
had  some  very  particular  opportunities  of 
judging,  I  have  no  more  doubt  than  I  have 
of  the  ordinary  photography  of  commerce. 
It  had  already  been  shown  by  the  astrono- 
mers that  the  sensitized  plate  is  a  more  deli- 
cate recording  instrument  than  the  human 
retina,  and  that  it  can  show  stars  upon  a 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  59 

long  exposure  which  the  eye  has  never  seen. 
It  would  appear  that  the  spirit  world  is 
really  so  near  to  us  that  a  very  little  extra 
help  under  correct  conditions  of  medium- 
ship  will  make  all  the  difference.  Thus  the 
plate,  instead  of  the  eye,  may  bring  the 
loved  face  within  the  range  of  vision,  while 
the  trumpet,  acting  as  a  megaphone,  may 
bring  back  the  familiar  voice  where  the 
spirit  whisper  with  no  mechanical  aid  was 
still  inaudible.  So  loud  may  the  latter  phe- 
nomenon be  that  in  one  case,  of  which  I  have 
the  record,  the  dead  man's  dog  was  so  ex- 
cited at  hearing  once  more  his  master's 
voice  that  he  broke  his  chain,  and  deeply 
scarred  the  outside  of  the  seance  room  door 
in  his  efforts  to  force  an  entrance. 

Now,  having  said  so  much  of  the  spirit 
body,  and  having  indicated  that  its  presence 
is  not  vouched  for  by  only  one  line  of  evi- 
dence or  school  of  thought,  let  us  turn  to 
what  happens  at  the  time  of  death,  accord- 
ing to  the  observation  of  clairvoyants  on  this 
side  and  the  posthumous  accounts  of  the 
dead  upon  the  other.  It  is  exactly  what  we 
should  expect  to  happen,  granted  the  double 
identity.    In  a  painless  and  natural  process 


60  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

the  lighter  disengages  itself  from  the 
heavier,  and  slowly  draws  itself  off  until  it 
stands  with  the  same  mind,  the  same  emo- 
tions, and  an  exactly  similar  body,  beside 
the  couch  of  death,  aware  of  those  around 
and  yet  unable  to  make  them  aware  of  it, 
save  where  that  finer  spiritual  eyesight 
called  clairvoyance  exists.  How,  we  may 
well  ask,  can  it  see  without  the  natural  or- 
gans? How  did  the  hashish  victim  see  his 
own  unconscious  body?  How  did  the 
Florida  doctor  see  his  friend?  There  is  a 
power  of  perception  in  the  spiritual  body 
which  does  give  the  power.  We  can  say  no 
more.  To  the  clairvoyant  the  new  spirit 
seems  like  a  filmy  outline.  To  the  ordinary 
man  it  is  invisible.  To  another  spirit  it 
would,  no  doubt,  seem  as  normal  and  sub- 
stantial as  we  appear  to  each  other.  There 
is  some  evidence  that  it  refines  with  time, 
and  is  therefore  nearer  to  the  material  at  the 
moment  of  death  or  closely  after  it,  than 
after  a  lapse  of  months  or  years.  Hence,  it 
is  that  apparitions  of  the  dead  are  most  clear 
and  most  common  about  the  time  of  death, 
and  hence  also,  no  doubt,  the  fact  that  the 
cataleptic  physician  already  quoted  was  seen 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  61 

and  recognised  by  his  friend.  The  meshes 
of  his  ether,  if  the  phrase  be  permitted,  were 
still  heavy  with  the  matter  from  which  they 
had  only  just  been  disentangled. 

Having  disengaged  itself  from  grosser 
matter,  what  happens  to  this  spirit  body, 
the  precious  bark  which  bears  our  all  in  all 
upon  this  voyage  into  unknown  seas  ?  Very 
many  accounts  have  come  back  to  us,  verbal 
and  written,  detailing  the  experiences  of 
those  who  have  passed  on.  The  verbal  are 
by  trance  mediums,  whose  utterances  appear 
to  be  controlled  by  outside  intelligences. 
The  written  from  automatic  writers  whose 
script  is  produced  in  the  same  way.  At  these 
words  the  critic  naturally  and  reasonably 
shies,  with  a  "What  nonsense!  How  can 
you  control  the  statement  of  this  medium 
who  is  consciously  or  unconsciously  pre- 
tending to  inspiration?"  This  is  a  healthy 
scepticism,  and  should  animate  every  ex- 
perimenter who  tests  a  new  medium.  The 
proofs  must  lie  in  the  communication  itself. 
If  they  are  not  present,  then,  as  always,  we 
must  accept  natural  rather  than  unknown 
explanations.  But  they  are  continually 
present,  and  in  such  obvious  forms  that  no 


62  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

one  can  deny  them.  There  is  a  certain  pro- 
fessional medium  to  whom  I  have  sent  many 
mothers  who  were  in  need  of  consolation. 
I  always  ask  the  applicants  to  report  the  re- 
sult to  me,  and  I  have  their  letters  of  sur- 
prise and  gratitude  before  me  as  I  write. 
"Thank  you  for  this  beautiful  and  interest- 
ing experience.  She  did  not  make  a  single 
mistake  about  their  names,  and  everything 
she  said  was  correct. ' '  In  this  case  there  was 
a  rift  between  husband  and  wife  before 
death,  but  the  medium  was  able,  unaided,  to 
explain  and  clear  up  the  whole  matter,  men- 
tioning the  correct  circumstances,  and  names 
of  everyone  concerned,  and  showing  the  rea- 
sons for  the  non-arrival  of  certain  letters, 
which  had  been  the  cause  of  the  misunder- 
standing. The  next  case  was  also  one  of 
husband  and  wife,  but  it  is  the  husband  who 
is  the  survivor.  He  says:  "It  was  a  most 
successful  sitting.  Among  other  things,  1 
addressed  a  remark  in  Danish  to  my  wife 
(who  is  a  Danish  girl),  and  the  answer  came 
back  in  English  without  the  least  hesita- 
tion." The  next  case  was  again  of  a  man 
who  had  lost  a  very  dear  male  friend.  "I 
have  had  the  most  wonderful  results  with 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  63 

Mrs. to-day.    I  cannot  tell  you  the  joy 

it  has  been  to  me.    Many  grateful  thanks  for 

your  help."    The  next  one  says :  "Mrs. 

was  simply  wonderful.  If  only  more  people 
knew,  what  agony  they  would  be  spared." 
In  this  case  the  wife  got  in  touch  with  the 
husband,  and  the  medium  mentioned  cor- 
rectly five  dead  relatives  who  were  in  his 
company.    The  next  is  a  case  of  mother  and 

son.    "I  saw  Mrs. to-day,  and  obtained 

very  wonderful  results.  She  told  me  near- 
ly everything  quite  correctly — a  very  few 
mistakes. ' '  The  next  is  similar.  ' '  We  were 
quite  successful.  My  boy  even  reminded  me 
of  something  that  only  he  and  I  knew." 
Says  another:  "My  boy  reminded  me  of  the 
day  when  he  sowed  turnip  seed  upon  the 
lawn.  Only  he  could  have  known  of  this." 
These  are  fair  samples  of  the  letters,  of 
which  I  hold  a  large  number.  They  are  from 
people  who  present  themselves  from  among 
the  millions  living  in  London,  or  the 
provinces,  and  about  whose  affairs  the  me- 
dium had  no  possible  normal  way  of  know- 
ing. Of  all  the  very  numerous  eases  which  I 
have  sent  to  this  medium  I  have  only  had  a 
few  which  have  been  complete  failures.    On 


64  [THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

quoting  my  results  to  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  lie 
remarked  that  his  own  experience  with  an- 
other medium  had  been  almost  identical.  It 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  our  British 
telephone  systems  would  probably  give  a 
larger  proportion  of  useless  calls.  How  is 
any  critic  to  get  beyond  these  facts  save  by 
ignoring  or  misrepresenting  them  %  Healthy 
scepticism  is  the  basis  of  ail  accurate  ob- 
servation, but  there  comes  a  time  when  in- 
credulity means  either  culpable  ignorance 
or  else  imbecility,  and  this  time  has  been  long 
past  in  the  matter  of  spirit  intercourse. 

In  my  own  case,  this  medium  mentioned 
correctly  the  first  name  of  a  lady  who  had 
died  in  our  house,  gave  several  very  char- 
acteristic messages  from  her,  described  the 
only  two  dogs  which  we  have  ever  kept,  and 
ended  by  saying  that  a  young  officer  was 
holding  up  a  gold  coin  by  which  I  would 
recognise  him.  I  had  lost  my  brother-in- 
law,  an  army  doctor,  in  the  war,  and  I  had 
given  him  a  spade  guinea  for  his  first  fee, 
which  he  always  wore  on  his  chain.  There 
were  not  more  than  two  or  three  close  rela- 
tives who  knew  about  this  incident,  so  that 
the  test  was  a  particularly  good  one.    She 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  65 

made  no  incorrect  statements,  though  some 
were  vague.  After  I  had  revealed  the  iden- 
tity of  this  medium  several  pressmen  at- 
tempted to  have  test  seances  with  her — 
a  test  seance  being,  in  most  cases,  a  seance 
which  begins  by  breaking  every  psychic  con- 
dition and  making  success  most  improbable. 
One  of  these  gentlemen,  Mr.  Ulyss  Rogers, 
had  very  fair  results.  Another  sent  from 
" Truth"  had  complete  failure.  It  must  be 
understood  that  these  powers  do  not  work 
from  the  medium,  but  through  the  medium, 
and  that  the  forces  in  the  beyond  have  not 
the  least  sympathy  with  a  smart  young  press- 
man in  search  of  clever  copy,  while  they 
have  a  very  different  feeling  to  a  bereaved 
mother  who  prays  with  all  her  broken  heart 
that  some  assurance  may  be  given  her  that 
the  child  of  her  love  is  not  gone  from  her 
for  ever.  When  this  fact  is  mastered,  and 
it  is  understood  that  "  Stand  and  deliver" 
methods  only  excite  gentle  derision  on  the 
other  side,  we  shall  find  some  more  intelli- 
gent manner  of  putting  things  of  the  spirit 
to  the  proof.* 
I  have  dwelt  upon  these  results,  whicK 

*  See  Appendix  D. 


66  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

could  be  matched  by  other  mediums,  to 
show  that  we  have  solid  and  certain  reasons 
to  say  that  the  verbal  reports  are  not  from 
the  mediums  themselves.  Readers  of  Ar- 
thur Hill's  "Psychical  Investigations"  will 
find  many  even  more  convincing  cases.  So 
in  the  written  communications,  I  have  in  a 
previous  paper  pointed  to  the  "Gate  of  Re- 
membrance" case,  but  there  is  a  great  mass 
of  material  which  proves  that,  in  spite  of 
mistakes  and  failures,  there  really  is  a  chan- 
nel of  communication,  fitful  and  evasive 
sometimes,  but  entirely  beyond  coincidence 
or  fraud.  These,  then,  are  the  usual  means 
by  which  we  receive  psychic  messages, 
though  table  tilting,  ouija  boards,  glasses 
upon  a  smooth  surface,  or  anything  which 
can  be  moved  by  the  vital  animal-magnetic 
force  already  discussed  will  equally  serve 
the  purpose.  Often  information  is  con- 
veyed orally  or  by  writing  which  could  not 
have  been  known  to  anyone  concerned.  Mr. 
Wilkinson  has  given  details  of  the  case 
where  his  dead  son  drew  attention  to  the 
fact  that  a  curio  (a  coin  bent  by  a  bullet) 
had  been  overlooked  among  his  effects.  Sir 
William  Barrett  has  narrated  how  a  young 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  67i 

officer  sent  a  message  leaving  a  pearl  tie-pin 
to  a  friend.  No  one  knew  that  such  a  pin 
existed,  but  it  was  found  among  his  things. 
The  death  of  Sir  Hugh  Lane  was  given  at 
a  private  seance  in  Dublin  before  the  de- 
tails of  the  Lusitania  disaster  had  been  pub- 
lished.* On  that  morning  we  ourselves,  in 
a  small  seance,  got  the  message  "It  is  ter- 
rible, terrible,  and  will  greatly  affect  the 
war, ' '  at  a  time  when  we  were  convinced  that 
no  great  loss  of  life  could  have  occurred. 
Such  examples  are  very  numerous,  and  are 
only  quoted  here  to  show  how  impossible  it 
is  to  invoke  telepathy  as  the  origin  of  such 
messages.  There  is  only  one  explanation 
which  covers  the  facts.  They  are  what  they 
say  they  are,  messages  from  those  who  have 
passed  on,  from  the  spiritual  body  which 
was  seen  to  rise  from  the  deathbed,  which 
has  been  so  often  photographed,  which  per- 
vades all  religion  in  every  age,  and  which  has 
been  able,  under  proper  circumstances,  to 
materialise  back  into  a  temporary  solidity 
so  that  it  could  walk  and  talk  like  a  mortal, 
whether  in  Jerusalem  two  thousand  years 

*  The  details  of  both  these  latter  cases  are  to  be  found  in 
"Voices  from  the  Void"  by  Mrs.  Travers  Smith,  a  book  con- 
taining some  well  weighed  evidence. 


68  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

ago,  or  in  the  laboratory  of  Mr.  Crookes,  in 
Mornington  Road,  London. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  examine  the  facts  in 
this  Crookes'  episode.  A  small  book  exists 
which  describes  them,  though  it  is  not  as 
accessible  as  it  should  be.  In  these  wonder- 
ful experiments,  which  extended  over  several 
years,  Miss  Plorrie  Cook,  who  was  a  young 
lady  of  from  16  to  18  years  of  age,  was  re- 
peatedly confined  in  Prof.  Crookes'  study, 
the  door  being  locked  on  the  inside.  Here 
she  lay  unconscious  upon  a  couch.  The  spec- 
tators assembled  in  the  laboratory,  which 
was  separated  by  a  curtained  opening  from 
the  study.  After  a  short  interval,  through 
this  opening  there  emerged  a  lady  who  was 
in  all  ways  different  from  Miss  Cook.  She 
gave  her  earth  name  as  Katie  King,  and  she 
proclaimed  herself  to  be  a  materialised 
spirit,  whose  mission  it  was  to  carry  the 
knowledge  of  immortality  to  mortals.  She 
was  of  great  beauty  of  face,  figure,  and  man- 
ner. She  was  four  and  a  half  inches  taller 
than  Miss  Cook,  fair,  whereas  the  latter  was 
dark,  and  as  different  from  her  as  one 
woman  could  be  from  another.  Her  pulse 
rate  was  markedly  slower.    She  became  for 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  69 

the  time  entirely  one  of  the  company,  walk- 
ing about,  addressing  each  person  present, 
and  taking  delight  in  the  children.  She 
made  no  objection  to  photography  or  any 
other  test.  Forty-eight  photographs  of  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  excellence  were  made  of 
her.  She  was  seen  at  the  same  time  as  the 
medium  on  several  occasions.  Finally  she 
departed,  saying  that  her  mission  was  over 
and  that  she  had  other  work  to  do.  When 
she  vanished  materialism  should  have  van- 
ished also,  if  mankind  had  taken  adequate 
notice  of  the  facts. 

JSTow,  what  can  the  fair-minded  inquirer 
say  to  such  a  story  as  that — one  of  many, 
but  for  the  moment  we  are  concentrating 
upon  it  ?  Was  Mr.  Crookes  a  blasphemous 
liar  ?  But  there  were  very  many  witnesses, 
as  many  sometimes  as  eight  at  a  single 
sitting.  And  there  are  the  photographs 
which  include  Miss  Cook  and  show  that  the 
two  women  were  quite  different.  Was  he 
honestly  mistaken?  But  that  is  inconceiv- 
able. Read  the  original  narrative  and  see 
if  you  can  find  any  solution  save  that  it  is 
true.  If  a  man  can  read  that  sober,  cau- 
tious statement  and  not  be  convinced,  then 


70  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

assuredly  his  brain  is  out  of  gear.  Finally, 
ask  yourself  whether  any  religious  mani- 
festation in  the  world  has  had  anything  like 
the  absolute  proof  which  lies  in  this  one. 
Cannot  the  orthodox  see  that  instead  of 
combating  such  a  story,  or  talking  non- 
sense about  devils,  they  should  hail  that 
which  is  indeed  the  final  answer  to  that  ma- 
terialism which  is  their  really  dangerous 
enemy.  Even  as  I  write,  my  eye  falls  upon 
a  letter  on  my  desk  from  an  officer  who  had 
lost  all  faith  in  immortality  and  become  an 
absolute  materialist.  "I  came  to  dread  my 
return  home,  for  I  cannot  stand  hypocrisy, 
and  I  knew  well  my  attitude  would  cause 
some  members  of  my  family  deep  grief. 
Your  book  has  now  brought  me  untold  com- 
fort, and  I  can  face  the  future  cheerfully." 
Are  these  fruits  from  the  Devil's  tree,  you 
timid  orthodox  critic? 

Having  then  got  in  touch  with  our  dead, 
we  proceed,  naturally,  to  ask  them  how  it  is 
with  them,  and  under  what  conditions  they 
exist.  It  is  a  very  vital  question,  since  what 
has  befallen  them  yesterday  will  surely  be- 
fall us  to-morrow.  But  the  answer  is  tid- 
ings of  great  joy.     Of  the  new  vital  mes- 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  71 

sage  to  humanity  nothing  is  more  important 
than  that.  It  rolls  away  all  those  horrible 
man-bred  fears  and  fancies,  founded  upon 
morbid  imaginations  and  the  wild  phrases 
of  the  oriental.  We  come  upon  what  is  sane, 
what  is  moderate,  what  is  reasonable,  what 
is  consistent  with  gradual  evolution  and 
with  the  benevolence  of  God.  Were  there 
ever  any  conscious  blasphemers  upon  earth 
who  have  insulted  the  Deity  so  deeply  as 
those  extremists,  be  they  Calvinist,  Roman 
Catholic,  Anglican,  or  Jew,  who  pictured 
with  their  distorted  minds  an  implacable 
torturer  as  the  Ruler  of  the  Universe ! 

The  truth  of  what  is  told  us  as  to  the  life 
beyond  can  in  its  very  nature  never  be  ab- 
solutely established.  It  is  far  nearer  to 
complete  proof,  however,  than  any  religious 
revelation  which  has  ever  preceded  it.  We 
have  the  fact  that  these  accounts  are  mixed 
up  with  others  concerning  our  present  life 
which  are  often  absolutely  true.  If  a  spirit 
can  tell  the  truth  about  our  sphere,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  suppose  that  he  is  entirely  false  about 
his  own.  Then,  again,  there  is  a  very  great 
similarity  about  such  accounts,  though  their 
origin  may  be  from  people  very  far  apart. 


72  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

Thus  though  "non- veridical, "  to  use  the 
modern  jargon,  they  do  conform  to  all  our 
canons  of  evidence.  A  series  of  books  which 
have  attracted  far  less  attention  than  they 
deserve  have  drawn  the  coming  life  in  very 
close  detail.  These  books  are  not  found  on 
railway  bookstalls  or  in  popular  libraries, 
but  the  successive  editions  through  which 
they  pass  show  that  there  is  a  deeper  public 
which  gets  what  it  wants  in  spite  of  artificial 
obstacles. 

Looking  over  the  list  of  my  reading  I  find, 
besides  nearly  a  dozen  very  interesting  and 
detailed  manuscript  accounts,  such  pub- 
lished narratives  as  " Claude's  Book,"  pur- 
porting to  come  from  a  young  British  avi- 
ator; "Thy  Son  Liveth,"  from  an  American 
soldier,  " Private  Dowding";  "Baymond," 
from  a  British  soldier;  "Do  Thoughts  Per- 
ish^" which  contains  accounts  from  several 
British  soldiers  and  others;  "I  Heard  a 
[Voice, "  where  a  well-known  K.C.,  through 
the  mediumship  of  his  two  young  daughters, 
has  a  very  full  revelation  of  the  life  be- 
yond; "After  Death,"  with  the  alleged  ex- 
periences of  the  famous  Miss  Julia  Ames; 
"The  Seven  Purposes,"  from  an  American 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  73 

pressman,  and  many  others.  They  differ 
much  in  literary  skill  and  are  not  all  equally 
impressive,  but  the  point  which  must  strike 
any  impartial  mind  is  the  general  agreement 
of  these  various  accounts  as  to  the  conditions 
of  spirit  life.  An  examination  would  show 
that  some  of  them  must  have  been  in  the 
press  at  the  same  time,  so  that  they  could 
not  have  each  inspired  the  other.  i '  Claude 's 
Book"  and  "Thy  Son  Liveth"  appeared  at 
nearly  the  same  time  on  different  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  but  they  agree  very  closely. 
"Baymond"  and  "Do  Thoughts  Perish1?" 
must  also  have  been  in  the  press  together, 
but  the  scheme  of  things  is  exactly  the  same. 
Surely  the  agreement  of  witnesses  must 
here,  as  in  all  cases,  be  accounted  as  a  test 
of  truth.  They  differ  mainly,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  when  they  deal  with  their  own  future, 
including  speculations  as  to  reincarnation, 
etc.,  which  may  well  be  as  foggy  to  them  as 
it  is  to  us,  or  systems  of  philosophy  where 
again  individual  opinion  is  apparent. 

Of  all  these  accounts  the  one  which  is  most 
deserving  of  study  is  "Raymond."  This  is 
so  because  it  has  been  compiled  from  sev- 
eral famous  mediums  working  independent- 


74  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

ly  of  each  other,  and  has  been  checked  and 
chronicled  by  a  man  who  is  not  only  one  of 
the  foremost  scientists  of  the  world,  and 
probably  the  leading  intellectual  force  in 
Europe,  but  one  who  has  also  had  a  unique 
experience  of  the  precautions  necessary  for 
the  observation  of  psychic  phenomena.  The 
bright  and  sweet  nature  of  the  young  soldier 
upon  the  other  side,  and  his  eagerness  to 
tell  of  his  experience  is  also  a  factor  which 
will  appeal  to  those  who  are  already  satis- 
fied as  to  the  truth  of  the  communications. 
For  all  these  reasons  it  is  a  most  important 
document — indeed  it  would  be  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  it  is  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant in  recent  literature.  It  is,  as  I  believe, 
an  authentic  account  of  the  life  in  the  be- 
yond, and  it  is  often  more  interesting  from 
its  sidelights  and  reservations  than  for  its 
actual  assertions,  though  the  latter  bear  the 
stamp  of  absolute  frankness  and  sincerity. 
The  compilation  is  in  some  ways  faulty.  Sir 
Oliver  has  not  always  the  art  of  writing  so 
as  to  be  understanded  of  the  people,  and  his 
deeper  and  more  weighty  thoughts  get  in 
the  way  of  the  clear  utterances  of  his  son. 
Then  again,  in  his  anxiety  to  be  absolutely 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  75 

accurate,  Sir  Oliver  has  reproduced  the  fact 
that  sometimes  Raymond  is  speaking  direct, 
and  sometimes  the  control  is  reporting  what 
Raymond  is  saying,  so  that  the  same  para- 
graph may  turn  several  times  from  the  first 
person  to  the  third  in  a  manner  which  must 
be  utterly  unintelligible  to  those  who  are 
not  versed  in  the  subject.  Sir  Oliver  will, 
I  am  sure,  not  be  offended  if  I  say  that, 
having  satisfied  his  conscience  by  the  pres- 
ent edition,  he  should  now  leave  it  for  refer- 
ence, and  put  forth  a  new  one  which  should 
contain  nothing  but  the  words  of  Raymond 
and  his  spirit  friends.  Such  a  book,  pub- 
lished at  a  low  price,  would,  I  think,  have 
an  amazing  effect,  and  get  all  this  new 
teaching  to  the  spot  that  God  has  marked 
for  it — the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people. 

So  much  has  been  said  here  about  medium- 
ship  that  perhaps  it  would  be  well  to  con- 
sider this  curious  condition  a  little  more 
closely.  The  question  of  mediumship,  what 
it  is  and  how  it  acts,  is  one  of  the  most  mys- 
terious in  the  whole  range  of  science.  It  is 
a  common  objection  to  say  if  our  dead  are 
there  why  should  we  only  hear  of  them 
through  people  by  no  means  remarkable  for 


76  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

moral  or  mental  gifts,  who  are  often  paid 
for  their  ministration.  It  is  a  plausible  ar- 
gument, and  yet  when  we  receive  a  telegram 
from  a  brother  in  Australia  we  do  not  say : 
"It  is  strange  that  Tom  should  not  com- 
municate with  me  direct,  but  that  the  pres- 
ence of  that  half -educated  fellow  in  the  tele- 
graph office  should  be  necessary."  The 
medium  is  in  truth  a  mere  passive  machine, 
clerk  and  telegraph  in  one.  Nothing  comes 
from  him.  Every  message  is  through  him. 
Why  he  or  she  should  have  the  power  more 
than  anyone  else  is  a  very  interesting  prob- 
lem. This  power  may  best  be  defined  as  the 
capacity  for  allowing  the  bodily  powers, 
physical  or  mental,  to  be  used  by  an  outside 
influence.  In  its  higher  forms  there  is  tem- 
porary extinction  of  personality  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  some  other  controlling  spirit. 
At  such  times  the  medium  may  entirely  lose 
consciousness,  or  he  may  retain  it  and  be 
aware  of  some  external  experience  which  has 
been  enjoyed  by  his  own  entity  while  his 
bodily  house  has  been  filled  by  the  temporary 
tenant.  Or  the  medium  may  retain  con- 
sciousness, and  with  eyes  and  ears  attuned 
to  a  higher  key  than  the  normal  man  can  at- 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  77 

tain,  he  may  see  and  hear  what  is  beyond 
our  senses.  Or  in  writing  mediumship,  a 
motor  centre  of  the  brain  regulating  the 
nerves  and  muscles  of  the  arm  may  be  con- 
trolled while  all  else  seems  to  be  normal.  Or 
it  may  take  the  more  material  form  of  the 
exudation  of  a  strange  white  evanescent 
dough-like  substance  called  the  ectoplasm, 
which  has  been  frequently  photographed  by 
scientific  enquirers  in  different  stages  of  its 
evolution,  and  which  seems  to  possess  an  in- 
herent quality  of  shaping  itself  into  parts 
or  the  whole  of  a  body,  beginning  in  a  putty- 
like mould  and  ending  in  a  resemblance  to 
perfect  human  members.  Or  the  ectoplasm, 
which  seems  to  be  an  emanation  of  the  me- 
dium to  the  extent  that  whatever  it  may 
weigh  is  so  much  subtracted  from  his  sub- 
stance, may  be  used  as  projections  or  rods 
which  can  convey  objects  or  lift  weights.  A 
friend,  in  whose  judgment  and  veracity  I 
have  absolute  confidence,  was  present  at  one 
of  Dr.  Crawford's  experiments  with  Kath- 
leen Goligher,  who  is,  it  may  be  remarked,  an 
unpaid  medium.  My  friend  touched  the 
column  of  force,  and  found  it  could  be  felt 
by  the  hand  though  invisible  to  the  eye. 


78  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

It  is  clear  that  we  are  in  touch  with  some 
entirely  new  form  both  of  matter  and  of 
energy.  We  know  little  of  the  properties  of 
this  extraordinary  substance  save  that  in  its 
materialising  form  it  seems  extremely  sen- 
sitive to  the  action  of  light.  A  figure  built 
up  in  it  and  detached  from  the  medium  dis- 
solves in  light  quicker  than  a  snow  image 
under  a  tropical  sun,  so  that  two  successive 
flash-light  photographs  would  show  the  one 
a  perfect  figure,  and  the  next  an  amorphous 
mass.  When  still  attached  to  the  medium 
the  ectoplasm  flies  back  with  great  force  on 
exposure  to  light,  and,  in  spite  of  the  laugh- 
ter of  the  scoffers,  there  is  none  the  less  good 
evidence  that  several  mediums  have  been 
badly  injured  by  the  recoil  after  a  light  has 
suddenly  been  struck  by  some  amateur  de- 
tective. Professor  Geley  has,  in  his  recent 
experiments,  described  the  ectoplasm  as  ap- 
pearing outside  the  black  dress  of  his  me- 
dium as  if  a  hoar  frost  had  descended  upon 
her,  then  coalescing  into  a  continuous  sheet 
of  white  substance,  and  oozing  down  until 
it  formed  a  sort  of  apron  in  front  of  her.* 

*  For  Geley 's  Experiments,  vide  Appendix  A. 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  79 

This  process  lie  has  illustrated  by  a  very 
complete  series  of  photographs. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  properties  of  me- 
diumship.  There  are  also  the  beautiful  phe- 
nomena of  the  production  of  lights,  and  the 
rarer,  but  for  evidential  purposes  even  more 
valuable,  manifestations  of  spirit  photog- 
raphy. The  fact  that  the  photograph  does 
not  correspond  in  many  cases  with  any  which 
existed  in  life,  must  surely  silence  the  scof- 
fer, though  there  is  a  class  of  bigoted  sceptic 
who  would  still  be  sneering  if  an  Archangel 
alighted  in  Trafalgar  Square.  Mr.  Hope 
and  Mrs.  Buxton,  of  Crewe,  have  brought 
this  phase  of  mediumship  to  great  perfec- 
tion, though  others  have  powers  in  that  di- 
rection. Indeed,  in  some  cases  it  is  difficult 
to  say  who  the  medium  may  have  been,  for 
in  one  collective  family  group  which  was 
taken  in  the  ordinary  way,  and  was  sent  me 
by  a  master  in  a  well  known  public  school, 
the  young  son  who  died  has  appeared  in  the 
plate  seated  between  his  two  little  brothers. 

As  to  the  personality  of  mediums,  they 
have  seemed  to  me  to  be  very  average  speci- 
mens of  the  community,  neither  markedly 
oetter  nor  markedly  worse.    I  know  many, 


80  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

and  I  have  never  met  anything  in  the  least 
like  "Sludge,"  a  poem  which  Browning 
might  be  excused  for  writing  in  some  crisis 
of  domestic  disagreement,  but  which  it  was 
inexcusable  to  republish  since  it  is  admitted 
to  be  a  concoction,  and  the  exposure  de- 
scribed to  have  been  imaginary.  The  critic 
often  uses  the  term  medium  as  if  it  neces- 
sarily meant  a  professional,  whereas  every 
investigator  has  found  some  of  his  best  re- 
sults among  amateurs.  In  the  two  finest 
seances  I  ever  attended,  the  psychic,  in  each 
case  a  man  of  moderate  means,  was  resolute- 
ly determined  never  directly  or  indirectly 
to  profit  by  his  gift,  though  it  entailed  very 
exhausting  physical  conditions.  I  have  not 
heard  of  a  clergyman  of  any  denomination 
who  has  attained  such  a  pitch  of  altruism — 
nor  is  it  reasonable  to  expect  it.  As  to  pro- 
fessional mediums,  Mr.  Yout  Peters,  one  of 
the  most  famous,  is  a  diligent  collector  of 
old  books  and  an  authority  upon  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama ;  while  Mr.  Dickinson,  another 
very  remarkable  discerner  of  spirits,  who 
named  twenty-four  correctly  during  two 
meetings  held  on  the  same  day,  is  employed 
in  loading  canal  barges.    This  man  is  one 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  81 

of  the  most  gifted  clairvoyants  in  England, 
though  Tom  Tyrrell  the  weaver,  Aaron  Wil- 
kinson, and  others  are  very  marvellous.  Tyr- 
rell, who  is  a  man  of  the  Anthony  of  Padua 
type,  a  walking  saint,  beloved  of  animals 
and  children,  is  a  figure  who  might  have 
stepped  out  of  some  legend  of  the  church. 
Thomas,  the  powerful  physical  medium,  is 
a  working  coal  miner.  Most  mediums  take 
their  responsibilities  very  seriously  and  view 
their  work  in  a  religious  light.  There  is  no 
denying  that  they  are  exposed  to  very  par- 
ticular temptations,  for  the  gift  is,  as  I  have 
explained  elsewhere,  an  intermittent  one, 
and  to  admit  its  temporary  absence,  and  so 
discourage  one's  clients,  needs  greater  moral 
principle  than  all  men  possess.  Another 
temptation  to  which  several  great  mediums 
have  succumbed  is  that  of  drink.  This  comes 
about  in  a  very  natural  way,  for  overworking 
the  power  leaves  them  in  a  state  of  physical 
prostration,  and  the  stimulus  of  alcohol  af- 
fords a  welcome  relief,  and  may  tend  at  last 
to  become  a  custom  and  finally  a  curse.  Al- 
coholism always  weakens  the  moral  sense, 
so  that  these  degenerate  mediums  yield  them- 
selves more  readily  to  fraud,  with  the  result 


82  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

that  several  who  had  deservedly  won  hon- 
oured names  and  met  all  hostile  criticism 
have,  in  their  later  years,  been  detected  in 
the  most  contemptible  tricks.  It  is  a  thou- 
sand pities  that  it  should  be  so,  but  if  the 
Court  of  Arches  were  to  give  up  its  secrets, 
it  would  be  found  that  tippling  and  moral 
degeneration  were  by  no  means  confined  to 
psychics.  At  the  same  time,  a  psychic  is  so 
peculiarly  sensitive  that  I  think  he  or  she 
would  always  be  well  advised  to  be  a  life  long 
abstainer — as  many  actually  are. 

As  to  the  method  by  which  they  attain 
their  results  they  have,  when  in  the  trance 
state,  no  recollection.  In  the  case  of  normal 
clairvoyants  and  clairaudients,  the  informa- 
tion comes  in  different  ways.  Sometimes  it 
is  no  more  than  a  strong  mental  impression 
which  gives  a  name  or  an  address.  Some- 
times they  say  that  they  see  it  written  up 
before  them.  Sometimes  the  spirit  figures 
seem  to  call  it  to  them.  "They  yell  it  at 
me,"  said  one.  We  need  more  first-hand 
accounts  of  these  matters  before  we  can 
formulate  laws. 

It  has  been  stated  in  a  previous  book  by 
the  author,  but  it  will  bear  repetition,  that 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  SB 

the  use  of  the  seance  should,  in  his  opinion, 
be  carefully  regulated  as  well  as  reverently 
conducted.  Having  once  satisfied  himself 
of  the  absolute  existence  of  the  unseen  world, 
and  of  its  proximity  to  our  own,  the  inquirer 
has  got  the  great  gift  which  psychical  investi- 
gation can  give  him,  and  thencef  orth  he  can 
regulate  his  life  upon  the  lines  which  the 
teaching  from  beyond  has  shown  to  be  the 
best.  There  is  much  force  in  the  criticism 
that  too  constant  intercourse  with  the  af- 
fairs of  another  world  may  distract  our  at- 
tention and  weaken  our  powers  in  dealing 
with  our  obvious  duties  in  this  one.  A  se- 
ance, with  the  object  of  satisfying  curiosity 
or  of  rousing  interest,  cannot  be  an  elevating 
influence,  and  the  mere  sensation-monger 
can  make  this  holy  and  wonderful  thing  as 
base  as  the  over-indulgence  in  a  stimulant. 
On  the  other  hand,  where  the  seance  is  used 
for  the  purpose  of  satisfying  ourselves  as  to 
the  condition  of  those  whom  we  have  lost, 
or  of  giving  comfort  to  others  who  crave 
for  a  word  from  beyond,  then  it  is,  indeed, 
a  blessed  gift  from  God  to  be  used  with 
moderation  and  with  thankfulness.  Our 
loved  ones  have  their  own  pleasant  tasks  in 


84  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

their  new  surroundings,  and  though  they  as- 
sure us  that  they  love  to  clasp  the  hands 
which  we  stretch  out  to  them,  we  should  still 
have  some  hesitation  in  intruding  to  an  un- 
reasonable extent  upon  the  routine  of  their 
lives. 

A  word  should  be  said  as  to  that  fear  of 
fiends  and  evil  spirits  which  appears  to  have 
so  much  weight  with  some  of  the  critics  of 
this  subject.  When  one  looks  more  closely 
at  this  emotion  it  seems  somewhat  selfish 
and  cowardly.  These  creatures  are  in  truth 
our  own  backward  brothers,  bound  for  the 
same  ultimate  destination  as  ourselves,  but 
retarded  by  causes  for  which  our  earth  con- 
ditions may  have  been  partly  responsible. 
Our  pity  and  sympathy  should  go  out  to 
them,  and  if  they  do  indeed  manifest  at  a 
seance,  the  proper  Christian  attitude  is,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  that  we  should  reason  with 
them  and  pray  for  them  in  order  to  help 
them  upon  their  difficult  way.  Those  who 
have  treated  them  in  this  way  have  found  a 
very  marked  difference  in  the  subsequent 
communications.  In  Admiral  Usborne 
Moore's  " Glimpses  of  the  Next  State"  there 


THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT  85 

will  be  found  some  records  of  an  American 
circle  which  devoted  itself  entirely  to  mis- 
sionary work  of  this  sort.  There  is  some 
reason  to  believe  that  there  are  forms  of 
imperfect  development  which  can  be  helped 
more  by  earthly  than  by  purely  spiritual  in- 
fluences, for  the  reason,  perhaps,  that  they 
are  closer  to  the  material. 

In  a  recent  case  I  was  called  in  to  en- 
deavour to  check  a  very  noisy  entity  which 
frequented  an  old  house  in  which  there  were 
strong  reasons  to  believe  that  crime  had  been 
committed,  and  also  that  the  criminal  was 
earth-bound.  Names  were  given  by  the  un- 
happy spirit  which  proved  to  be  correct, 
and  a  cupboard  was  described,  which  was 
duly  found,  though  it  had  never  before  been 
suspected.  On  getting  into  touch  with  the 
spirit  I  endeavoured  to  reason  with  it  and 
to  explain  how  selfish  it  was  to  cause  misery 
to  others  in  order  to  satisfy  any  feelings 
of  revenge  which  it  might  have  carried  over 
from  earth  life.  "We  then  prayed  for  its 
welfare,  exhorted  it  to  rise  higher,  and  re- 
ceived a  very  solemn  assurance,  tilted  out  at 
the  table,  that  it  would  mend  its  ways.    I 


86  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

have  very  gratifying  reports  that  it  has  done 
so,  and  that  all  is  now  quiet  in  the  old  house. 
Let  us  now  consider  the  life  in  the  Beyond 
as  it  is  shown  to  us  by  the  new  revelation. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   COMING   WOKLD 

We  come  first  to  the  messages  which  tell 
us  of  the  life  beyond  the  grave,  sent  by  those 
who  are  actually  living  it.  I  have  already 
insisted  upon  the  fact  that  they  have  three 
weighty  claims  to  our  belief.  The  one  is,  that 
they  are  accompanied  by  " signs,"  in  the  Bib- 
lical sense, in  the  shape  of  "miracles"  or  phe- 
nomena. The  second  is,  that  in  many  cases 
they  are  accompanied  by  assertions  about 
this  life  of  ours  which  prove  to  be  correct, 
and  which  are  beyond  the  possible  knowl- 
edge of  the  medium  after  every  deduction 
has  been  made  for  telepathy  or  for  uncon- 
scious memory.  The  third  is,  that  they  have 
a  remarkable,  though  not  a  complete,  simi- 
larity from  whatever  source  they  come.  It 
may  be  noted  that  the  differences  of  opinion 
become  most  marked  when  they  deal  with 
their  own  future,  which  may  well  be  a  mat- 

87 


88  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

ter  of  speculation  to  them  as  to  us.  Thus, 
upon  the  question  of  reincarnation  there  is 
a  distinct  cleavage,  and  though  I  am  myself 
of  opinion  that  the  general  evidence  is 
against  this  oriental  doctrine,  it  is  none  the 
less  an  undeniable  fact  that  it  has  been  main- 
tained by  some  messages  which  appear  in 
other  ways  to  be  authentic,  and,  therefore, 
it  is  necessary  to  keep  one's  mind  open  on 
the  subject. 

Before  entering  upon  the  substance  of  the 
messages  I  should  wish  to  emphasize  the 
second  of  these  two  points,  so  as  to  reinforce 
the  reader's  confidence  in  the  authenticity 
of  these  assertions.  To  this  end  I  will  give 
a  detailed  example,  with  names  almost  exact. 
The  medium  was  Mr.  Phoenix,  of  Glasgow, 
with  whom  I  have  myself  had  some  remark- 
able experiences.  The  sitter  was  Mr.  Ernest 
Oaten,  the  President  of  the  Northern 
Spiritual  Union,  a  man  of  the  utmost 
veracity  and  precision  of  statement.  The 
dialogue,  which  came  by  the  direct  voice,  a 
trumpet  acting  as  megaphone,  ran  like 
this : — 

'The  Voice:  Good  evening,  Mr.  Oaten. 


THE  COMING  WORLD  89 

Mr.  0.:  Good    evening.      Who    are 
you? 
The  Voice :  My  name  is  Mill.    You  know 
my  father. 
Mr.  0.:  No,  I  don't  remember  any- 
one of  the  name. 
The  Voice:  Yes,  you  were  speaking  to 
him  the  other  day. 
Mr.  0.:  To    be    sure.      I    remember 
now.    I  only  met  him  casu- 
ally. 
The  Voice :  I  want  you  to  give  him  a  mes- 
sage from  me. 
Mr.  0.:  What  is  it? 
The  Voice :  Tell  him  that  he  was  not  mis- 
taken at  midnight  on  Tues- 
day last. 
Mr.  0.:  Very  good.     I  will  say  so. 
Have  you  passed  long  ? 
The  Voice :  Some  time.    But  our  time  is 
different  from  yours. 
Mr.  0. :  What  were  you? 
The  Voice:  A  Surgeon. 

Mr.  0. :  How  did  you  pass  ? 
The  Voice :  Blown  up  in  a  battleship  dur- 
ing the  war. 
Mr.  0.:  Anything  more? 


90  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

The  answer  was  the  Gipsy  song  from  "H 
Trovatore,"  very  accurately  whistled,  and 
then  a  quick-step.  After  the  latter,  the  voice 
said:  "That  is  a  test  for  father." 

This  reproduction  of  conversation  is  not 
quite  verbatim,  but  gives  the  condensed  es- 
sence. Mr.  Oaten  at  once  visited  Mr.  Mill, 
who  was  not  a  Spiritualist,  and  found  that 
every  detail  was  correct.  Young  Mill  had 
lost  his  life  as  narrated.  Mr.  Mill,  senior, 
explained  that  while  sitting  in  his  study  at 
midnight  on  the  date  named  he  had  heard 
the  Gipsy  song  from  "II  Trovatore,"  which 
had  been  a  favourite  of  his  boy's,  and  being 
unable  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  music,  had 
finally  thought  that  it  was  a  freak  of  his 
imagination.  The  test  connected  with  the 
quick-step  had  reference  to  a  tune  which  the 
young  man  used  to  play  upon  the  piccolo, 
but  which  was  so  rapid  that  he  never  could 
get  it  right,  for  which  he  was  chaffed  by  the 
family. 

I  tell  this  story  at  length  to  make  the 
reader  realise  that  when  young  Mill,  and 
others  like  him,  give  such  proofs  of  accu- 
racy, which  we  can  test  for  ourselves,  we  are 
bound  to  take  their  assertions  very  seriously 


THE  COMING  WORLD  91 

when  they  deal  with  the  life  they  are  actu- 
ally leading,  though  in  their  very  nature  we 
can  only  check  their  accounts  by  comparison 
with  others. 

Now  let  me  epitomise  what  these  asser- 
tions are.  They  say  that  they  are  exceed- 
ingly happy,  and  that  they  do  not  wish  to 
return.  They  are  among  the  friends  whom 
they  had  loved  and  lost,  who  meet  them  when 
they  die  and  continue  their  careers  together. 
They  are  very  busy  on  all  forms  of  congenial 
work.  The  world  in  which  they  find  them- 
selves is  very  much  like  that  which  they  have 
quitted,  but  everything  keyed  to  a  higher 
octave.  As  in  a  higher  octave  the  rhythm 
is  the  same,  and  the  relation  of  notes  to  each 
other  the  same,  but  the  total  effect  different, 
so  it  is  here.  Every  earthly  thing  has  its 
equivalent.  Scoffers  have  guffawed  over 
alcohol  and  tobacco,  but  if  all  things  are  re- 
produced it  would  be  a  flaw  if  these  were  not 
reproduced  also.  That  they  should  be 
abused,  as  they  are  here,  would,  indeed,  be 
evil  tidings,  but  nothing  of  the  sort  has  been 
said,  and  in  the  much  discussed  passage  in 
" Raymond,"  their  production  was  alluded  to 
as  though  it  were  an  unusual,  and  in  a  way  a 


92  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

humorous,  instance  of  the  resources  of  the 
beyond.  I  wonder  how  many  of  the  preach- 
ers, who  have  taken  advantage  of  this  pas- 
sage in  order  to  attack  the  whole  new  revela- 
tion, have  remembered  that  the  only  other 
message  which  ever  associated  alcohol  with 
the  life  beyond  is  that  of  Christ  Himself, 
when  He  said:  "I  will  not  drink  henceforth 
of  this  fruit  of  the  vine  until  that  day  when 
I  drink  it  new  with  you  in  my  Father's 
kingdom." 

This  matter  is  a  detail,  however,  and  it  is 
always  dangerous  to  discuss  details  in  a 
subject  which  is  so  enormous,  so  dimly  seen. 
As  the  wisest  woman  I  have  known  remarked 
to  me :  "Things  may  well  be  surprising  over 
there,  for  if  we  had  been  told  the  facts  of 
this  life  before  we  entered  it,  we  should 
never  have  believed  it. ' '  In  its  larger  issues 
this  happy  life  to  come  consists  in  the  de- 
velopment of  those  gifts  which  we  possess. 
There  is  action  for  the  man  of  action,  intel- 
lectual work  for  the  thinker,  artistic,  liter- 
ary, dramatic  and  religious  for  those  whose 
God-given  powers  lie  that  way.  "What  we 
have  both  in  brain  and  character  we  carry 
over  with  us.    No  man  is  too  old  to  learn, 


THE  COMING  WORLD  93 

for  what  lie  learns  lie  keeps.  There  is  no 
physical  side  to  love  and  no  child-birth, 
though  there  is  close  union  between  those 
married  peojDle  who  really  love  each  other, 
and,  generally,  there  is  deep  sympathetic 
friendship  and  comradeship  between  the 
sexes.  Every  man  or  woman  finds  a  soul  mate 
sooner  or  later.  The  child  grows  up  to  the 
normal,  so  that  the  mother  who  lost  a  babe 
of  two  years  old,  and  dies  herself  twenty 
years  later  finds  a  grown-up  daughter  of 
twenty-two  awaiting  her  coming.  Age, 
which  is  produced  chiefly  by  the  mechanical 
presence  of  lime  in  our  arteries,  disa}3pears, 
and  the  individual  reverts  to  the  full  nor- 
mal growth  and  appearance  of  completed 
man — or  womanhood.  Let  no  woman  mourn 
her  lost  beauty,  and  no  man  his  lost  strength 
or  weakening  brain.  It  all  awaits  them  once 
more  upon  the  other  side.  Nor  is  any  de- 
formity or  bodily  weakness  there,  for  all  is 
normal  and  at  its  best. 

Before  leaving  this  section  of  the  subject, 
I  should  say  a  few  more  words  upon  the  evi- 
dence as  it  affects  the  etheric  body.  This 
body  is  a  perfect  thing.  This  is  a  matter 
of  consequence  in  these  days  when  so  many 


94?  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

of  our  heroes  have  been  mutilated  in  the 
wars.  One  cannot  mutilate  the  etheric  body, 
and  it  remains  always  intact.  The  first 
words  uttered  by  a  returning  spirit  in  the 
recent  experience  of  Dr.  Abraham  Wallace 
were  "I  have  got  my  left  arm  again. "  The 
same  applies  to  all  birth  marks,  deformities, 
blindness,  and  other  imperfections.  None 
of  them  are  permanent,  and  all  will  vanish 
in  that  happier  life  that  awaits  us.  Such 
is  the  teaching  from  the  beyond — that  a  per- 
fect body  waits  for  each. 

"But,"  says  the  critic,  "what  then  of  the 
clairvoyant  descriptions,  or  the  visions 
where  the  aged  father  is  seen,  clad  in  the 
old-fashioned  garments  of  another  age,  or 
the  grandmother  with  crinoline  and  chig- 
non ?  Are  these  the  habiliments  of  heaven  ? ' p 
Such  visions  are  not  spirits,  but  they  are  pic- 
tures which  are  built  up  before  us  or  shot 
by  spirits  into  our  brains  or  those  of  the 
seer  for  the  purposes  of  recognition.  Hence 
the  grey  hair  and  hence  the  ancient  garb. 
When  a  real  spirit  is  indeed  seen  it  comes  in 
another  form  to  this,  where  the  flowing  robe, 
such  as  has  always  been  traditionally  as- 
cribed to  the  angels,  is  a  vital  thing  which, 


THE  COMING  WORLD  95 

by  its  very  colour  and  texture,  proclaims  the 
spiritual  condition  of  the  wearer,  and  is 
probably  a  condensation  of  that  aura  which 
surrounds  us  upon  earth. 

It  is  a  world  of  sympathy.  Only  those 
who  have  this  tie  foregather.  The  sullen 
husband,  the  flighty  wife,  is  no  longer  there 
to  plague  the  innocent  spouse.  All  is  sweet 
and  peaceful.  It  is  the  long  rest  cure  after 
the  nerve  strain  of  life,  and  before  new  ex- 
periences in  the  future.  The  circumstances 
are  homely  and  familiar.  Happy  circles 
live  in  pleasant  homesteads  with  every 
amenity  of  beauty  and  of  music.  Beautiful 
gardens,  lovely  flowers,  green  woods,  pleas- 
ant lakes,  domestic  pets — all  of  these  things 
are  fully  described  in  the  messages  of  the 
pioneer  travellers  who  have  at  last  got  news 
back  to  those  who  loiter  in  the  old  dingy 
home.  There  are  no  poor  and  no  rich.  The 
craftsman  may  still  pursue  his  craft,  but 
he  does  it  for  the  joy  of  his  work.  Each 
serves  the  community  as  best  he  can,  while 
from  above  come  higher  ministers  of  grace, 
the  "  Angels"  of  holy  writ,  to  direct  and  help. 
Above  all,  shedding  down  His  atmosphere 
upon  all,  broods  that  great  Christ  spirit, 


96  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

the  very  soul  of  reason,  of  justice,  and  of 
sympathetic  understanding,  who  has  the 
earth  sphere,  with  all  its  circles,  under  His 
very  special  care.  It  is  a  place  of  joy  and 
laughter.  There  are  games  and  sports  of  all 
sorts,  though  none  which  cause  pain  to  lower 
life.  Food  and  drink  in  the  grosser  sense 
do  not  exist,  but  there  seem  to  be  pleasures 
of  taste,  and  this  distinction  causes  some  con- 
fusion in  the  messages  upon  the  point.  But 
above  all,  brain,  energy,  character,  driving 
power,  if  exerted  for  good,  makes  a  man  a 
leader  there  as  here,  while  unselfishness,  pa- 
tience and  spirituality  there,  as  here,  qualify 
the  soul  for  the  higher  places,  which  have 
often  been  won  by  those  very  tribulations 
down  here  which  seem  so  purposeless  and  so 
cruel,  and  are  in  truth  our  chances  of  spirit- 
ual quickening  and  promotion,  without 
which  life  would  have  been  barren  and  with- 
out profit. 

The  revelation  abolishes  the  idea  of  a 
grotesque  hell  and  of  a  fantastic  heaven, 
while  it  substitutes  the  conception  of  a 
gradual  rise  in  the  scale  of  existence  without 
any  monstrous  change  which  would  turn  us 
in  an  instant  from  man  to  angel  or  devil. 


THE  COMING  WORLD  97 

The  system,  though  different  from  previous 
ideas,  does  not,  as  it  seems  to  me,  run  counter 
in  any  radical  fashion  to  the  old  beliefs.  In 
ancient  maps  it  was  usual  for  the  carto- 
grapher to  mark  blank  spaces  for  the  unex- 
plored regions,  with  some  such  legend  as 
"here  are  anthropophagi,"  or  "here  are 
mandrakes,"  scrawled  across  them.  So  in 
our  theology  there  have  been  ill-defined  areas 
which  have  admittedly  been  left  unfilled,  for 
what  sane  man  has  ever  believed  in  such  a 
heaven  as  is  depicted  in  our  hymn  books,  a 
land  of  musical  idleness  and  barren  monoto- 
nous adoration!  Thus  in  furnishing  a 
clearer  conception  this  new  system  has  noth- 
ing to  supplant.  It  paints  upon  a  blank 
sheet. 

One  may  well  ask,  however,  granting  that 
there  is  evidence  for  such  a  life  and  such  a 
world  as  has  been  described,  what  about 
those  who  have  not  merited  such  a  destina- 
tion? What  do  the  messages  from  beyond 
say  about  these?  And  here  one  cannot  be 
too  definite,  for  there  is  no  use  exchanging 
one  dogma  for  another.  One  can  but  give 
the  general  purport  of  such  information  as 
has  been  vouchsafed  to  us.    It  is  natural 


98  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

that  those  with  whom  we  come  in  contact  are 
those  whom  we  may  truly  call  the  blessed, 
for  if  the  thing  be  approached  in  a  reverent 
and  religious  spirit  it  is  those  whom  we 
should  naturally  attract.  That  there  are 
many  less  fortunate  than  themselves  is  evi- 
dent from  their  own  constant  allusions  to 
that  regenerating  and  elevating  missionary 
work  which  is  among  their  own  functions. 
They  descend  apparently  and  help  others  to 
gain  that  degree  of  spirituality  which  fits 
them  for  this  upper  sphere,  as  a  higher  stu- 
dent might  descend  to  a  lower  class  in  order 
to  bring  forward  a  backward  pupil.  Such 
a  conception  gives  point  to  Christ's  remark 
that  there  was  more  joy  in  heaven  over  sav- 
ing one  sinner  than  over  ninety-nine  just, 
for  if  He  had  spoken  of  an  earthly  sinner 
he  would  surely  have  had  to  become  just  in 
this  life  and  so  ceased  to  be  a  sinner  before 
he  had  reached  Paradise.  It  would  apply 
very  exactly,  however,  to  a  sinner  rescued 
from  a  lower  sphere  and  brought  to  a  higher 
one. 

When  we  view  sin  in  the  light  of  modern 
science,  with  the  tenderness  of  the  modern 
conscience  and  with  a  sense  of  justice  and 


THE  COMING  WORLD  99 

proportion,  it  ceases  to  be  that  monstrous 
cloud  which  darkened  the  whole  vision  of 
the  mediaeval  theologian.  Man  has  been 
more  harsh  with  himself  than  an  all-merci- 
ful God  will  ever  be.  It  is  true  that  with 
all  deductions  there  remains  a  great  re- 
siduum which  means  want  of  individual  ef- 
fort, conscious  weakness  of  will,  and  culpa- 
ble failure  of  character  when  the  sinner,  like 
Horace,  sees  and  applauds  the  higher  while 
he  follows  the  lower.  But  when,  on  the 
other  hand,  one  has  made  allowances — and 
can  our  human  allowance  be  as  generous  as 
God's? — for  the  sins  which  are  the  inev- 
itable product  of  early  environment,  for  the 
sins  which  are  due  to  hereditary  and  inborn 
taint,  and  to  the  sins  which  are  due  to  clear 
physical  causes,  then  the  total  of  active  sin 
is  greatly  reduced.  Could  one,  for  example, 
imagine  that  Providence,  all-wise  and  all- 
merciful,  as  every  creed  proclaims,  could 
punish  the  unfortunate  wretch  who  hatches 
criminal  thoughts  behind  the  slanting  brows 
of  a  criminal  head?  A  doctor  has  but  to 
glance  at  the  cranium  to  predicate  the  crime. 
In  its  worst  forms  all  crime,  form  Nero  to 
Jack  the  Ripper,  is  the  product  of  absolute 


100  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

lunacy,  and  those  gross  national  sins  to 
which  allusion  has  been  made  seem  to  point 
to  collective  national  insanity.  Surely,  then, 
there  is  hope  that  no  very  terrible  inferno 
is  needed  to  further  punish  those  who  have 
been  so  afflicted  upon  earth.  Some  of  our 
dead  have  remarked  that  nothing  has  sur- 
prised them  so  much  as  to  find  who  have 
been  chosen  for  honour,  and  certainly,  with- 
out in  any  way  condoning  sin,  one  could  well 
imagine  that  the  man  whose  organic  make- 
up predisposed  him  with  irresistible  force  in 
that  direction  should,  in  justice,  receive  con- 
dolence and  sympathy.  Possibly  such  a  sin- 
ner, if  he  had  not  sinned  so  deeply  as  he 
might  have  done,  stands  higher  than  the 
man  who  was  born  good,  and  remained  so, 
but  was  no  better  at  the  end  of  his  life.  The 
one  has  made  some  progress  and  the  other 
has  not.  But  the  commonest  failing,  the 
one  which  fills  the  spiritual  hospitals  of  the 
other  world,  and  is  a  temporary  bar  to  the 
normal  happiness  of  the  after-life,  is  the 
sin  of  Tomlinson  in  Kipling's  poem,  the 
commonest  of  all  sins  in  respectable  British 
circles,  the  sin  of  conventionality,  of  want 
of  conscious  effort  and  development,  of  a 


THE  COMING  WORLD.  TOJfc. 

sluggish  spirituality,  fatted  over  by  a  com- 
placent mind  and  by  the  comforts  of  life. 
It  is  the  man  who  is  satisfied,  the  man  who 
refers  his  salvation  to  some  church  or  higher 
power  without  steady  travail  of  his  own 
soul,  who  is  in  deadly  danger.    All  churches 
are  good,  Christian  or  non-Christian,  so  long 
as  they  promote  the  actual  spirit  life  of  the 
individual,  but  all  are  noxious  the  instant 
that  they  allow  him  to  think  that  by  any 
form  of  ceremony,  or  by  any  fashion  of 
creed,  he  obtains  the  least  advantage  over 
his  neighbour,  or  can  in  any  way  dispense 
with  that  personal  effort  which  is  the  only 
road  to  the  higher  places.     This  is,  of  course, 
as  applicable  to  believers  in  Spiritualism  as 
to  any  other  belief.     If  it  does  not  show  in 
practice    then    it    is    vain.     One    can    get 
through  this  life  very  comfortably  follow- 
ing without   question  in   some   procession 
with  a  venerable  leader.    But  one  does  not 
die  in  a  procession.     One  dies  alone.    And 
it  is  then  that  one  has  alone  to  accept  the 
level  gained  by  the  work  of  life. 

And  what  is  the  punishment  of  the  unde- 
veloped soul?  It  is  that  it  should  be  placed 
where  it  will  develop,  and  sorrow  would 


102.  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

seem  always  to  be  the  forcing  ground  of 
souls.  That  surely  is  our  own  experience  in 
life  where  the  insufferably  complacent  and 
unsympathetic  person  softens  and  mellows 
into  beauty  of  character  and  charity  of 
thought,  when  tried  long  enough  and  high 
enough  in  the  fires  of  life.  The  Bible  has 
talked  about  the  "  Outer  darkness  where 
there  is  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth." 
The  influence  of  the  Bible  has  sometimes 
been  an  evil  one  through  our  own  habit  of 
reading  a  book  of  Oriental  poetry  and  treat- 
ing it  as  literally  as  if  it  were  Occidental 
prose.  When  an  Eastern  describes  a  herd 
of  a  thousand  camels  he  talks  of  camels 
which  are  more  numerous  than  the  hairs  of 
your  head  or  the  stars  in  the  sky.  In  this 
spirit  of  allowance  for  Eastern  expression, 
one  must  approach  those  lurid  and  terrible 
descriptions  which  have  darkened  the  lives 
of  so  many  imaginative  children  and  sent 
so  many  earnest  adults  into  asylums.  From 
all  that  we  learn  there  are  indeed  places  of 
outer  darkness,  but  dim  as  these  uncom- 
fortable waiting-rooms  may  be,  they  all  ad- 
mit to  heaven  in  the  end.  That  is  the  final 
destination  of  the  human  race,  and  it  would 


THE  COMING  WORLD  103 

indeed  be  a  reproach  to  the  Almighty  if  it 
were  not  so.  We  cannot  dogmatise  upon 
this  subject  of  the  penal  spheres,  and  yet  we 
have  very  clear  teaching  that  they  are  there 
and  that  the  no-man's-land  which  separates 
ns  from  the  normal  heaven,  that  third 
heaven  to  which  St.  Paul  seems  to  have  been 
wafted  in  one  short  strange  experience  of 
his  lifetime,  is  a  place  which  corresponds 
with  the  Astral  plane  of  the  mystics  and  with 
the  " outer  darkness"  of  the  Bible.  Here 
linger  those  earth-bound  spirits  whose 
worldly  interests  have  clogged  them  and 
weighed  them  down,  until  every  spiritual 
impulse  had  vanished;  the  man  whose  life 
has  been  centred  on  money,  on  worldly  am- 
bition, or  on  sensual  indulgence.  The  one- 
idea'd  man  will  surely  be  there,  if  his  one 
idea  was  not  a  spiritual  one.  Nor  is  it  nec- 
essary that  he  should  be  an  evil  man,  if  dear 
old  brother  John  of  Glastonbury,  who  loved 
the  great  Abbey  so  that  he  could  never  de- 
tach himself  from  it,  is  to  be  classed  among 
earth-bound  spirits.  In  the  most  material 
and  pronounced  classes  of  these  are  the 
ghosts  who  impinge  very  closely  upon  mat- 
ter and  have  been  seen  so  often  by  those  who 


104  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

have  no  strong  psychic  sense.  It  is  prob- 
able, from  what  we  know  of  the  material 
laws  which  govern  such  matters,  that  a 
ghost  could  never  manifest  itself  if  it  were 
alone,  that  the  substance  for  the  manifesta- 
tion is  drawn  from  the  spectator,  and  that 
the  coldness,  raising  of  hair,  and  other 
symptoms  of  which  he  complains  are  caused 
largely  by  the  sudden  drain  upon  his  own 
vitality.  This,  however,  is  to  wander  into 
speculation,  and  far  from  that  correlation 
of  psychic  knowledge  with  religion,  which 
has  been  the  aim  of  these  chapters. 

By  one  of  those  strange  coincidences, 
which  seem  to  me  sometimes  to  be  more  than 
coincidences,  I  had  reached  this  point  in  my 
explanation  of  the  difficult  question  of  the 
intermediate  state,  and  was  myself  desiring 
further  enlightenment,  when  an  old  book 
•reached  me  through  the  post,  sent  by  some- 
one whom  I  have  never  met,  and  in  it  is  the 
following  passage,  written  by  an  automatic 
writer,  and  in  existence  since  1880.  It  makes 
the  matter  plain,  endorsing  what  has  been 
said  and  adding  new  points.  ' '  Some  cannot 
advance  further  than  the  borderland — such 
as  never  thought  of  spirit  life  and  have  lived 


THE  COMING  WORLD  105 

entirely  for  the  earth,  its  cares  and  pleas- 
ures— even  clever  men  and  women,  who 
have  lived  simply  intellectual  lives  without 
spirituality.  There  are  many  who  have 
misused  their  opportunities,  and  are  now 
longing  for  the  time  misspent  and  wishing 
to  recall  the  earth-life.  They  will  learn 
that  on  this  side  the  time  can  be  redeemed, 
though  at  much  cost.  The  borderland  has 
many  among  the  restless  money-getters  of 
earth,  who  still  haunt  the  places  where  they 
had  their  hopes  and  joys.  These  are  often 
the  longest  to  remain  .  .  .  many  are  not  un- 
happy. They  feel  the  relief  to  be  sufficient 
to  be  without  their  earth  bodies.  All  pass 
through  the  borderland,  but  some  hardly 
perceive  it.  It  is  so  immediate,  and  there  is 
no  resting  there  for  them.  They  pass  on  at 
once  to  the  refreshment  place  of  which  we 
tell  you. ' '  The  anonymous  author,  after  re- 
cording this  spirit  message,  mentions  the  in- 
teresting fact  that  there  is  a  Christian  in- 
scription in  the  Catacombs  which  runs: 
Nicefortts  Anima  Dulcis  in  Refrigerio, 
"Mcephorus,  a  sweet  soul  in  the  refresh- 
ment place."     One  more  scrap  of  evidence 


106  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

that  the  early  Christian  scheme  of  things 
was  very  like  that  of  the  modern  psychic. 

So  much  for  the  borderland,  the  interme- 
diate condition.  The  present  Christian 
dogma  has  no  name  for  it,  unless  it  be  that 
nebulous  limbo  which  is  occasionally  men- 
tioned, and  is  usually  defined  as  the  place 
wThere  the  souls  of  the  just  who  died  before 
Christ  were  detained.  The  idea  of  cross- 
ing a  space  before  reaching  a  permanent 
state  on  the  other  side  is  common  to  many 
religions,  and  took  the  allegorical  form  of 
a  river  with  a  ferry-boat  among  the  Ro- 
mans and  Greeks.  Continually,  one  comes 
on  points  which  make  one  realise  that  far 
back  in  the  world 's  history  there  has  been  a 
true  revelation,  which  has  been  blurred  and 
twisted  in  time.  Thus  in  Dr.  Muir's  sum- 
mary of  the  Rig.  Veda,  he  says,  epitomising 
the  beliefs  of  the  first  Aryan  conquerors  of 
India:  "  Before,  however,  the  unborn 
part"  (that  is,  the  etheric  body)  "can  com- 
plete its  course  to  the  third  heaven  it  has  to 
traverse  a  vast  gulf  of  darkness,  leaving  be- 
hind on  earth  all  that  is  evil,  and  proceed- 
ing by  the  paths  the  fathers  trod,  the  spirit 
soars  to  the  realms  of  eternal  light,  recovers 


THE  COMING  WORLD  107 

there  his  body  in  a  glorified  form,  and  ob- 
tains from  God  a  delectable  abode  and  en- 
ters upon  a  more  perfect  life,  which  is 
crowned  with  the  fulfilment  of  all  desires,  is 
passed  in  the  presence  of  the  Gods  and  em- 
ployed in  the  fulfilment  of  their  pleasure." 
If  we  substitute  " angels"  for  "Gods"  we 
must  admit  that  the  new  revelation  from 
modern  spirit  sources  has  much  in  common 
with  the  belief  of  our  Aryan  fathers. 

Such,  in  very  condensed  form,  is  the 
world  which  is  revealed  to  us  by  these  won- 
derful messages  from  the  beyond.  Is  it  an 
unreasonable  vision?  Is  it  in  any  way  op- 
posed to  just  principles'?  Is  it  not  rather 
so  reasonable  that  having  got  the  clue  we 
could  now  see  that,  given  any  life  at  all,  this 
is  exactly  the  line  upon  which  we  should  ex- 
pect to  move?  Nature  and  evolution  are 
averse  from  sudden  disconnected  develop- 
ments. If  a  human  being  has  technical,  lit- 
erary, musical,  or  other  tendencies,  they  are 
an  essential  part  of  his  character,  and  to 
survive  without  them  would  be  to  lose  his 
identity  and  to  become  an  entirely  different 
man.  They  must  therefore  survive  death  if 
personality  is  to  be  maintained.    But  it  is 


108  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

no  use  their  surviving  unless  they  can  find 
means  of  expression,  and  means  of  ex}:>res- 
sion  seem  to  require  certain  material  agents, 
and  also  a  discriminating  audience.  So  also 
the  sense  of  modesty  among  civilised  races 
has  become  part  of  our  very  selves,  and  im- 
plies some  covering  of  our  forms  if  person- 
ality is  to  continue.  Our  desires  and  sym- 
pathies would  prompt  us  to  live  with  those 
we  love,  which  implies  something  in  the  na- 
ture of  a  house,  while  the  human  need  for 
mental  rest  and  privacy  would  predicate  the 
existence  of  separate  rooms.  Thus,  merely 
starting  from  the  basis  of  the  continuity  of 
personality  one  might,  even  without  the  reve- 
lation from  the  beyond,  have  built  up  some 
such  sytsem  by  the  use  of  pure  reason  and 
deduction. 

So  far  as  the  existence  of  this  land  of  hap- 
piness goes,  it  would  seem  to  have  been  more 
fully  proved  than  any  other  religious  con- 
ception within  our  knowledge. 

It  may  very  reasonably  be  asked,  how  far 
this  precise  description  of  life  beyond  the 
grave  is  my  own  conception,  and  how  far  it 
has  been  accepted  by  the  greater  minds  who 
have  studied  this  subject?    I  would  answer, 


THE  COMING  WORLD  109 

that  it  is  my  own  conclusion  as  gathered 
from  a  very  large  amount  of  existing  testi- 
mony, and  that  in  its  main  lines  it  has  for 
many  years  been  accepted  by  those  great 
numbers  of  silent  active  workers  all  over  the 
world,  who  look  upon  this  matter  from  a 
strictly  religious  point  of  view.  I  think 
that  the  evidence  amply  justifies  us  in  this 
belief.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  have 
approached  this  subject  with  cold  and  cau- 
tious scientific  brains,  endowed,  in  many 
cases,  with  the  strongest  prejudices  against 
dogmatic  creeds  and  with  very  natural  fears 
about  the  possible  re-growth  of  theological 
quarrels,  have  in  most  cases  stopped  short 
of  a  complete  acceptance,  declaring  that 
there  can  be  no  positive  proof  upon  such 
matters,  and  that  we  may  deceive  ourselves 
either  by  a  reflection  of  our  own  thoughts  or 
by  receiving  the  impressions  of  the  medium. 
Professor  Zollner,  for  example,  says :  ' '  Sci- 
ence can  make  no  use  of  the  substance  of  in- 
tellectual revelations,  but  must  be  guided  by 
observed  facts  and  by  the  conclusions  log- 
ically and  mathematically  uniting  them" — 
a  passage  which  is  quoted  with  approval  by 
Professor  EeicEel,  and  would  seem  to  be 


110  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

endorsed  by  the  silence  concerning  the  re- 
ligious side  of  the  question  which  is  ob- 
served by  most  of  our  great  scientific  sup- 
porters. It  is  a  point  of  view  which  can  well 
be  understood,  and  yet,  closely  examined,  it 
would  appear  to  be  a  species  of  enlarged  ma- 
terialism. To  admit,  as  these  observers  do, 
that  spirits  do  return,  that  they  give  every 
proof  of  being  the  actual  friends  whom  we 
have  lost,  and  yet  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the 
messages  which  they  send  would  seem  to  be 
pushing  caution  to  the  verge  of  unreason. 
To  get  so  far,  and  yet  not  to  go  further,  is 
impossible  as  a  permanent  position.  If,  for 
example,  in  Raymond's  case  we  find  so  many 
allusions  to  the  small  details  of  his  home 
upon  earth,  which  prove  to  be  surprisingly 
correct,  is  it  reasonable  to  put  a  blue  pencil 
through  all  he  says  of  the  home  which  he 
actually  inhabits  ?  Long  before  I  had  con- 
vinced my  mind  of  the  truth  of  things  which 
appeared  so  grotesque  and  incredible,  I  had 
a  long  account  sent  by  table  tilting  about  the 
conditions  of  life  beyond.  The  details 
seemed  to  me  impossible  and  I  set  them 
aside,  and  yet  they  harmonise,  as  I  now  dis- 
cover, with  other  revelations.    So,  too,  with 


THE  COMING  WORLD  111 

the  automatic  script  of  Mr.  Hubert  "Wales, 
which  has  been  described  in  my  previous 
book.  He  had  tossed  it  aside  into  a  drawer 
as  being  unworthy  of  serious  consideration, 
and  yet  it  also  proved  to  be  in  harmony.  In 
neither  of  these  cases  was  telepathy  or  the 
prepossession  of  the  medium  a  possible  ex- 
planation. On  the  whole,  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  these  doubtful  or  dissentient  sci- 
entific men,  having  their  own  weighty  stud- 
ies to  attend  to,  have  confined  their  reading 
and  thought  to  the  more  objective  side  of 
the  question,  and  are  not  aware  of  the  vast 
amount  of  concurrent  evidence  which  ap- 
pears to  give  us  an  exact  picture  of  the  life 
beyond.  They  despise  documents  which 
cannot  be  proved,  and  they  do  not,  in  my 
opinion,  sufficiently  realise  that  a  general 
agreement  of  testimony,  and  the  already  es- 
tablished character  of  a  witness,  are  them- 
selves arguments  for  truth.  Some  compli- 
cate the  question  by  predicating  the  exist- 
ence of  a  fourth  dimension  in  that  world,  but 
the  term  is  an  absurdity,  as  are  all  terms 
which  find  no  corresponding  impression  in 
the  human  brain.  We  have  mysteries 
enough  to  solve  without  gratuitously  intro- 


112  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

ducing  fresh  ones.  When  solid  passes 
through  solid,  it  is,  surely,  simpler  to  as- 
sume that  it  is  done  by  a  dematerialisation, 
and  subsequent  reassembly — a  process 
which  can,  at  least,  be  imagined  by  the  hu- 
man mind — than  to  invoke  an  explanation 
which  itself  needs  to  be  explained. 

In  the  next  and  final  chapter  I  will  ask 
the  reader  to  accompany  me  in  an  examina- 
tion of  the  New  Testament  by  the  light  of 
this  psychic  knowledge,  and  to  judge  how  far 
it  makes  clear  and  reasonable  much  which 
was  obscure  and  confused. 


CHAPTER  V 

IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN  ? 

There  are  many  incidents  in  the  New 
Testament  which  might  be  taken  as  starting 
points  in  tracing  a  close  analogy  between 
the  phenomenal  events  which  are  associated 
with  the  early  days  of  Christianity,  and 
those  which  have  perplexed  the  world  in  con- 
nection with  modern  Spiritualism.  Most  of 
us  are  prepared  to  admit  that  the  lasting 
claims  of  Christianity  upon  the  human  race 
are  due  to  its  own  intrinsic  teachings,  which 
are  quite  independent  of  those  wonders 
which  can  only  have  had  a  use  in  startling 
the  solid  complacence  of  an  unspiritual  race, 
and  so  directing  their  attention  violently  to 
this  new  system  of  thought.  Exactly  the 
same  may  be  said  of  the  new  revelation. 
The  exhibitions  of  a  force  which  is  beyond 
human  experience  and  human  guidance  is 
but  a  method  of  calling  attention.    To  re- 

113 


114  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

peat  a  simile  which  has  been  used  elsewhere, 
it  is  the  humble  telephone  bell  which  heralds 
the  all-important  message.  In  the  case  of 
Christ,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  more 
than  many  miracles.  In  the  case  of  this  new 
development,  the  messages  from  beyond  are 
more  than  any  phenomena.  A  vulgar  mind 
might  make  Christ's  story  seem  vulgar,  if  it 
insisted  upon  loaves  of  bread  and  the  bodies 
of  fish.  So,  also,  a  vulgar  mind  may  make 
psychic  religion  vulgar  by  insisting  upon 
moving  furniture  or  tambourines  in  the  air. 
In  each  case  they  are  crude  signs  of  power, 
and  the  essence  of  the  matter  lies  upon 
higher  planes. 

It  is  stated  in  the  second  chapter  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  that  they,  the  Chris- 
tian leaders,  were  all  "with  one  accord"  in 
one  place.  "With  one  accord"  expresses 
admirably  those  sympathetic  conditions 
which  have  always  been  found,  in  psychic 
circles,  to  be  conducive  of  the  best  results, 
and  which  are  so  persistently  ignored  by  a 
certain  class  of  investigators.  Then  there 
came  "a  mighty  rushing  wind,"  and  after- 
wards "there  appeared  cloven  tongues  like 
unto  fire  and  it  sat  upon  each  of  them." 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  115 

Here  is  a  very  definite  and  clear  account  of 
a  remarkable  sequence  of  phenomena.  Now, 
let  us  compare  with  this  the  results  which 
were  obtained  by  Professor  Crookes  in  his 
investigation  in  1873,  after  he  had  taken 
every  possible  precaution  against  fraud 
which  his  experience,  as  an  accurate  observer 
and  experimenter,  could  suggest.  He  says 
in  his  published  notes:  "I  have  seen  lumi- 
nous points  of  light  darting  about,  sitting  on 
the  heads  of  different  persons"  and  then 
again:  "These  movements,  and,  indeed,  I 
may  say  the  same  of  every  class  of  phenom- 
ena, are  generally  preceded  by  a  peculiar 
cold  air,  sometimes  amounting  to  a  decided 
wind.  I  have  had  sheets  of  paper  blown 
about  by  it.  .  .  ."  Now,  is  it  not  singular, 
not  merely  that  the  phenomena  should  be  of 
the  same  order,  but  that  they  should  come  in 
exactly  the  same  sequence,  the  wind  first  and 
the  lights  afterwards  ?  In  our  ignorance  of 
etheric  physics,  an  ignorance  which  is  now 
slowly  clearing,  one  can  only  say  that  there 
is  some  indication  here  of  a  general  law 
which  links  those  two  episodes  together  in 
spite  of  the  nineteen  centuries  which  divide 
them.    A  little  later,  it  is  stated  that  "the 


116  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

place  was  shaken  where  they  were  assem- 
bled together."  Many  modern  observers  of 
psychic  phenomena  have  testified  to  vibra- 
tion of  the  walls  of  an  apartment,  as  if  a 
heavy  lorry  were  passing.  It  is,  evidently, 
to  such  experiences  that  Paul  alludes  when 
he  says :  "Our  gospel  came  unto  you  not  in 
word  only,  but  also  in  power."  The 
preacher  of  the  New  Eevelation  can  most 
truly  say  the  same  words.  In  connection 
with  the  signs  of  the  pentecost,  I  can  most 
truly  say  that  I  have  myself  experienced 
them  all,  the  cold  sudden  wind,  the  lambent 
misty  flames,  all  under  the  mediumship  of 
Mr.  Phoenix,  an  amateur  psychic  of  Glas- 
gow. The  fifteen  sitters  were  of  one  accord 
upon  that  occasion,  and,  by  a  coincidence, 
it  was  in  an  upper  room,  at  the  very  top  of 
the  house. 

In  a  previous  section  of  this  essay,  I  have 
remarked  that  no  philosophical  explanation 
of  these  phenomena,  known  as  spiritual, 
could  be  conceived  which  did  not  show  that 
all,  however  different  in  their  working,  came 
from  the  same  central  source.  St.  Paul 
seems  to  state  this  in  so  many  words  when 
he  says:    "But  all  these  worketh  that  one 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  117 

and  the  selfsame  spirit,  dividing  to  every 
man  severally  as  lie  will."  Could  our  mod- 
ern speculation,  forced  upon  us  by  the  facts, 
be  more  tersely  stated?  He  has  just  enu- 
merated the  various  gifts,  and  we  find  them 
very  close  to  those  of  which  we  have  experi- 
ence. There  is  first  "the  word  of  wisdom," 
' '  the  word  of  knowledge ' '  and  ' '  faith. ' '  All 
these  taken  in  connection  with  the  Spirit 
would  seem  to  mean  the  higher  communica- 
tions from  the  other  side.  Then  comes 
healing,  which  is  still  practised  in  certain 
conditions  by  a  highly  virile  medium,  who 
has  the  power  of  discharging  strength,  los- 
ing just  as  much  as  the  weakling  gains,  as 
instanced  by  Christ  when  He  said:  "Who 
has  touched  me  ?  Much  virtue "  (or  power) 
"has  gone  out  of  me."  Then  we  come  upon 
the  working  of  miracles,  which  we  should 
call  the  production  of  phenomena,  and 
which  would  cover  many  different  types, 
such  as  apports,  where  objects  are  brought 
from  a  distance,  levitation  of  objects  or  of 
the  human  frame  into  the  air,  the  produc- 
tion of  lights  and  other  wonders.  Then 
comes  prophecy,  which  is  a  real  and  yet  a 
fitful  and  often  delusive  form  of  medium- 


118  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

Bhip — never  so  delusive  as  among  the  early 
Christians,  who  seem  all  to  have  mistaken 
the  approaching  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
destruction  of  the  Temple,  which  they  could 
dimly  see,  as  being  the  end  of  the  world. 
This  mistake  is  repeated  so  often  and  so 
clearly  that  it  is  really  not  honest  to  ignore 
or  deny  it.  Then  we  come  to  the  power  of 
' '  discerning  the  spirits, ' '  which  corresponds 
to  our  clairvoyance,  and  finally  that  curious 
and  usually  useless  gift  of  tongues,  which 
is  also  a  modern  phenomenon.  I  can  re- 
member that  some  time  ago  I  read  the  book, 
"I  Heard  a  Voice, "  by  an  eminent  barrister, 
in  which  he  describes  how  his  young  daugh- 
ter began  to  write  Greek  fluently  with  all 
the  complex  accents  in  their  correct  places. 
Just  after  I  read  it  I  received  a  letter  from 
a  no  less  famous  physician,  who  asked  my 
opinion  about  one  of  his  children  who  had 
written  a  considerable  amount  of  script  in 
mediaeval  French.  These  two  recent  cases 
are  beyond  all  doubt,  but  I  have  not  had 
convincing  evidence  of  the  case  where  some 
unintelligible  signs  drawn  by  an  unlettered 
man  were  pronounced  by  an  expert  to  be  in 
the  Ogham  or  early  Celtic  character.    As 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  119 

the  Ogham  script  is  really  a  combination  of 
straight  lines,  the  latter  case  may  be  taken 
with  considerable  reserve. 

Thus  the  phenomena  associated  with  the 
rise  of  Christianity  and  those  which  have 
appeared  during  the  present  spiritual  fer- 
ment are  very  analogous.  In  examining  the 
gifts  of  the  disciples,  as  mentioned  by  Mat- 
thew and  Mark,  the  only  additional  point  is 
the  raising  of  the  dead.  If  any  of  them 
besides  their  great  leader  did  in  truth  rise 
to  this  height  of  power,  where  life  was  actu- 
ally extinct,  then  he,  undoubtedly,  far 
transcended  anything  which  is  recorded  of 
modern  mediumship.  It  is  clear,  however, 
that  such  a  power  must  have  been  very  rare, 
since  it  would  otherwise  have  been  used  to 
revive  the  bodies  of  their  own  martyrs, 
which  does  not  seem  to  have  been  attempted. 
For  Christ  the  power  is  clearly  admitted, 
and  there  are  little  touches  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  how  it  was  exercised  by  Him  which 
are  extremely  convincing  to  a  psychic  stu- 
dent. In  the  account  of  how  He  raised 
Lazarus  from  the  grave  after  he  had  been 
four  days  dead — far  the  most  wonderful  of 
all  Christ's  miracles — it  is  recorded  that 


120  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

as  He  went  down  to  the  graveside  He  was 
"groaning."  Why  was  He  groaning?  No 
Biblical  student  seems  to  have  given  a  satis- 
factory reason.  But  anyone  who  has  heard 
a  medium  groaning  before  any  great  mani- 
festation of  power  will  read  into  this  pas- 
sage just  that  touch  of  practical  knowledge, 
which  will  convince  him  of  its  truth.  The 
miracle,  I  may  add,  is  none  the  less  wonder- 
ful or  beyond  our  human  powers,  because  it 
was  wrought  by  an  extension  of  natural  law, 
differing  only  in  degree  with  that  which 
we  can  ourselves  test  and  even  do. 

Although  our  modern  manifestations  have 
never  attained  the  power  mentioned  in  the 
Biblical  records,  they  present  some  features 
which  are  not  related  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Clairaudience,  that  is  the  hearing  of 
a  spirit  voice,  is  common  to  both,  but  the 
direct  voice,  that  is  the  hearing  of  a  voice 
which  all  can  discern  with  their  material 
ears,  is  a  well-authenticated  phenomenon 
now  which  is  more  rarely  mentioned  of  old. 
So,  too,  Spirit-photography,  where  the  cam- 
era records  what  the  human  eye  cannot  see, 
is  necessarily  a  new  testimony.  Nothing  is 
evidence  to  those  who  do  not  examine  evi- 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  121 

dence,  but  I  can  attest  most  solemnly  that  I 
personally  know  of  several  cases  where  the 
image  upon  the  plate  after  death  has  not 
only  been  unmistakable,  but  also  has  dif- 
fered entirely  from  any  pre-existing  photo- 
graph. 

As  to  the  methods  by  which  the  early 
Christians  communicated  with  the  spirits, 
or  with  the  "Saints"  as  they  called  their 
dead  brethren,  we  have,  so  far  as  I  know, 
no  record,  though  the  words  of  John: 
"Brothers,  believe  not  every  spirit,  but  try 
the  spirits  whether  they  are  of  God,"  show 
very  clearly  that  spirit  communion  was  a 
familiar  idea,  and  also  that  they  were 
plagued,  as  we  are,  by  the  intrusion  of  un- 
welcome spiritual  elements  in  their  inter- 
course. Some  have  conjectured  that  the 
"Angel  of  the  Church,"  who  is  alluded  to 
in  terms  which  suggest  that  he  was  a  human 
being,  was  really  a  medium  sanctified  to  the 
use  of  that  particular  congregation.  As  we 
have  early  indications  of  bishops,  deacons 
and  other  officials,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what 
else  the  "angel"  could  have  been.  This, 
however,  must  remain  a  pure  speculation. 

Another  speculation  which  is,  perhaps, 


122  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

rather  more  fruitful  is  upon  what  principle 
did  Christ  select  his  twelve  chief  followers. 
Out  of  all  the  multitudes  he  chose  twelve 
men.  Why  these  particular  ones  ?  It  was 
not  for  their  intelligence  or  learning,  for 
Peter  and  John,  who  were  among  the  most 
prominent,  are  expressly  described  as  "  un- 
learned and  ignorant  men. ' '  It  was  not  for 
their  virtue,  for  one  of  them  proved  to  be 
a  great  villain,  and  all  of  them  deserted  their 
Master  in  His  need.  It  was  not  for  their 
belief,  for  there  were  great  numbers  of  be- 
lievers. And  yet  it  is  clear  that  they  were 
chosen  on  some  principle  of  selection  since 
they  were  called  in  ones  and  in  twos.  In  at 
least  two  cases  they  were  pairs  of  brothers, 
as  though  some  family  gift  or  peculiarity 
might  underlie  the  choice. 

Is  it  not  at  least  possible  that  this  gift 
was  psychic  power,  and  that  Christ,  as  the 
greatest  exponent  who  has  ever  appeared 
upon  earth  of  that  power,  desired  to  sur- 
round Himself  with  others  who  possessed  it 
to  a  lesser  degree  ?  This  He  would  do  for 
two  reasons.  The  first  is  that  a  psychic  cir- 
cle is  a  great  source  of  strength  to  one  who 
is  himself  psychic,  as  is  shown  continually 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  12S 

in  our  own  experience,  where,  with  a  sympa- 
thetic and  helpful  surrounding,  an  atmos- 
phere is  created  where  all  the  powers  are 
drawn  out.  How  sensitive  Christ  was  to 
such  an  atmosphere  is  shown  by  the  remark 
of  the  Evangelist,  that  when  He  visited  His 
own  native  town,  where  the  townspeople 
could  not  take  Him  seriously,  He  was  unable 
to  do  any  wonders.  The  second  reason  may 
have  been  that  He  desired  them  to  act  as 
His  deputies,  either  during  his  lifetime  or 
after  His  death,  and  that  for  this  reason 
some  natural  psychic  powers  were  neces- 
sary. 

The  close  connection  which  appears  to 
exist  between  the  Apostles  and  the  miracles, 
has  been  worked  out  in  an  interesting 
fashion  by  Dr.  Abraham  Wallace,  in  his  lit- 
tle pamphlet  " Jesus  of  Nazareth.' '*  Cer- 
tainly, no  miracle  or  wonder  working,  save 
that  of  exorcism,  is  recorded  in  any  of  the 
Evangelists  until  after  the  time  when  Christ 
began  to  assemble  His  circle.  Of  this  circle 
the  three  who  would  appear  to  have  been 
the  most  psychic  were  Peter  and  the  two 

*  Published  at  sixpence  by  the  Light  Publishing  Co.,  6, 
Queen  Square,  London,  W.C.  The  same  firm  supplies  Dr.  Ellis 
Powell's  convincing  little  book  on  the  same  subject. 


124  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

fellow-fishermen,  sons  of  Zebedee,  John  and 
James.  These  were  the  three  who  were 
summoned  when  an  ideal  atmosphere  was 
needed.  It  will  be  remembered  that  when 
the  daughter  of  Jairus  was  raised  from  the 
dead  it  was  in  the  presence,  and  possibly 
with  the  co-operation,  of  these  three  assis- 
tants. Again,  in  the  case  of  the  Trans- 
figuration, it  is  impossible  to  read  the  ac- 
count of  that  wonderful  manifestation  with- 
out being  reminded  at  every  turn  of  one's 
own  spiritual  experiences.  Here,  again,  the 
points  are  admirably  made  in  "  Jesus  of 
Xazareth,"  and  it  would  be  well  if  that  little 
book,  with  its  scholarly  tone,  its  breadth  of 
treatment  and  its  psychic  knowledge,  was 
in  the  hands  of  every  Biblical  student.  Dr. 
Wallace  points  out  that  the  place,  the  sum- 
mit of  a  hill,  was  the  ideal  one  for  such  a 
manifestation,  in  its  pure  air  and  freedom 
from  interruption;  that  the  drowsy  state 
of  the  Apostles  is  paralleled  by  the  members 
of  any  circle  who  are  contributing  psychic 
power;  that  the  transfiguring  of  the  face 
and  the  shining  raiment  are  known  phe- 
nomena ;  above  all,  that  the  erection  of  three 
altars  is  meaningless,  but  that  the  alternate 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  125 

reading,  the  erection  of  three  booths  or 
cabinets,  one  for  the  medium  and  one  for 
each  materialised  form,  would  absolutely 
fulfil  the  most  perfect  conditions  for  getting 
results.  This  explanation  of  "Wallace's  is 
a  remarkable  example  of  a  modern  brain, 
with  modern  knowledge,  throwing  a  clear 
searchlight  across  all  the  centuries  and  illu- 
minating an  incident  which  has  always  been 
obscure. 

When  we  translate  Bible  language  into 
the  terms  of  modern  psychic  religion  the 
correspondence  becomes  evident.  It  does 
not  take  much  alteration.  Thus  for  "Lo,  a 
miracle!"  we  say  "This  is  a  manifestation." 
"The  angel  of  the  Lord"  becomes  "a  high 
spirit."  "Where  we  talked  of  "a  voice  from 
heaven,"  we  say  "the  direct  voice."  "His 
eyes  were  opened  and  he  saw  a  vision" 
means  "he  became  clairvoyant."  It  is  only 
the  occultist  who  can  possibly  understand 
the  Scriptures  as  being  a  real  exact  record 
of  events. 

There  are  many  other  small  points  which 
seem  to  bring  the  story  of  Christ  and  of  the 
Apostles  into  very  close  touch  with  modern 
psychic  research,  and  greatly  support  the 


126  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

close  accuracy  of  some  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment narrative.  One  which  appeals  to  me 
greatly  is  the  action  of  Christ  when  He  was 
asked  a  question  which  called  for  a  sudden 
decision,  namely  the  fate  of  the  woman  who 
had  been  taken  in  sin.  What  did  He  do? 
The  very  last  thing  that  one  would  have  ex- 
pected or  invented.  He  stooped  down  be- 
fore answering  and  wrote  with  his  finger  in 
the  sand.  This  he  did  a  second  time  upon 
a  second  catch-question  being  addressed  to 
Him.  Can  any  theologian  give  a  reason  for 
such  an  action  ?  I  hazard  the  opinion  that 
among  the  many  forms  of  mediumship 
which  were  possessed  in  the  highest  form 
by  Christ,  was  the  power  of  automatic  writ- 
ing, by  which  He  summoned  those  great 
forces  which  were  under  His  control  to  sup- 
ply Him  with  the  answer.  Granting,  as  I 
freely  do,  that  Christ  was  preternatural,  in 
the  sense  that  He  was  above  and  beyond  or- 
dinary humanity  in  His  attributes,  one  may 
still  inquire  how  far  these  powers  were  con- 
tained always  within  His  human  body,  or 
how  far  He  referred  back  to  spiritual  re- 
serves beyond  it.  When  He  spoke  merely 
from  His  human  body  He  was  certainly 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  127 

open  to  error,  like  the  rest  of  us,  for  it  is 
recorded  how  He  questioned  the  woman  of 
Samaria  about  her  husband,  to  which  she 
replied  that  she  had  no  husband.  In  the 
case  of  the  woman  taken  in  sin,  one  can  only 
explain  His  action  by  the  supposition  that 
He  opened  a  channel  instantly  for  the 
knowledge  and  wisdom  which  was  preter- 
human, and  which  at  once  gave  a  decision  in 
favor  of  large-minded  charity. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  effect 
which  these  phenomena,  or  the  report  of 
them,  produced  upon  the  orthodox  Jews  of 
those  days.  The  greater  part  obviously  dis- 
credited them,  otherwise  they  could  not  have 
failed  to  become  followers,  or  at  the  least 
to  have  regarded  such  a  wonder-worker  with 
respect  and  admiration.  One  can  well 
imagine  how  they  shook  their  bearded  heads, 
declared  that  such  occurrences  were  outside 
their  own  experience,  and  possibly  pointed 
to  the  local  conjuror  who  earned  a  few  not 
over-clean  denarii  by  imitating  the  phe- 
nomena. There  were  others,  however,  who 
could  not  possibly  deny,  because  they  either 
saw  or  met  with  witnesses  who  had  seen. 
These  declared  roundly  that  the  whole  thing 


128  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

was  of  the  devil,  drawing  from  Christ  one 
of  those  pithy,  common-sense  arguments  in 
which  He  excelled.  The  same  two  classes 
of  opponents,  the  scoffers  and  the  diabolists, 
face  us  to-day.  Verily  the  old  world  goes 
round  and  so  do  the  events  upon  its  surface. 
There  is  one  line  of  thought  which  may 
be  indicated  in  the  hope  that  it  will  find 
development  from  the  minds  and  pens  of 
those  who  have  studied  most  deeply  the  pos- 
sibilities of  psychic  power.  It  is  at  least 
possible,  though  I  admit  that  under  modern 
conditions  it  has  not  been  clearly  proved, 
that  a  medium  of  great  power  can  charge 
another  with  his  own  force,  just  as  a  magnet 
when  rubbed  upon  a  piece  of  inert  steel  can 
turn  it  also  into  a  magnet.  One  of  the  best 
attested  powers  of  D.  D.  Home  was  that  he 
could  take  burning  coals  from  the  fire  with 
impunity  and  carry  them  in  his  hand.  He 
could  then — and  this  comes  nearer  to  the 
point  at  issue — place  them  on  the  head  of 
anyone  who  was  fearless  without  their  being 
burned.  Spectators  have  described  how  the 
silver  filigree  of  the  hair  of  Mr.  Carter  Hall 
used  to  be  gathered  over  the  glowing  ember, 
and   Mrs.    Hall   has   mentioned   how   she 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  129 

combed  out  the  ashes  afterwards.    Now,  in 
this  case,  Home  was  clearly  able  to  convey  a 
power  to  another  person,  just  as   Christ, 
when  He  was  levitated  over  the  lake,  was 
able  to  convey  the  same  power  to  Peter,  so 
long  as  Peter's  faith  held  firm.     The  ques- 
tion then  arises  if  Home  concentrated  all  his 
force  upon  transferring  such  a  power  how* 
long  would  that  power  last?    The  experi- 
ment was  never  tried,  but  it  would  have 
borne  very  directly  upon  this  argument. 
[For,  granting  that  the  power  can  be  trans- 
ferred, then  it  is  very  clear  how  the  Christ 
circle  was  able  to  send  forth  seventy  disci- 
ples who  were   endowed  with  miraculous 
functions.    It  is  clear  also  why  new  disciples 
had  to  return  to  Jerusalem  to  be  "  baptised 
of  the  spirit,"  to  use  their  phrase,  before 
setting  forth  upon  their  wanderings.     And 
when  in  turn  they  desired  to  send  forth  rep- 
resentatives would  not  they  lay  hands  upon 
them,  make  passes  over  them  and  endeavour 
to  magnetise  them  in  the  same  way — if  that 
word  may  express  the  process?    Have  we 
here  the  meaning  of  the  laying  on  of  hands 
by  the  bishop  at  ordination,  a  ceremony  to 
which  vast  importance  is  still  attached,  but 


130  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

which  may  well  be  the  survival  of  something 
really  vital,  the  bestowal  of  the  thaumaturgic 
power  ?  When,  at  last,  through  lapse  of  time 
or  neglect  of  fresh  cultivation,  the  power  ran 
out,  the  empty  formula  may  have  been  car- 
ried on,  without  either  the  blesser  or  the 
blessed  understanding  what  it  was  that  the 
hands  of  the  bishop,  and  the  force  which 
streamed  from  them,  were  meant  to  bestow. 
The  very  words  "laying  on  of  hands"  would 
seem  to  suggest  something  different  from  a 
mere  benediction. 

Enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  show 
the  reader  that  it  is  possible  to  put  forward 
a  view  of  Christ's  life  which  would  be  in 
strict  accord  with  the  most  modern  psychic 
knowledge,  and  which,  far  from  supplant- 
ing Christianity,  would  show  the  surprising 
accuracy  of  some  of  the  details  handed  down 
to  us,  and  would  support  the  novel  conclu- 
sion that  those  very  miracles,  which  have 
been  the  stumbling  block  to  so  many  truth- 
ful, earnest  minds,  may  finally  offer  some 
very  cogent  arguments  for  the  truth  of  the 
whole  narrative.  Is  this  then  a  line  of 
thought  which  merits  the  wholesale  condem- 
nations and  anathemas  hurled  at  it  by  those 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  131 

who  profess  to  speak  in  the  name  of  religion  ? 
At  the  same  time,  though  we  bring  support 
to  the  New  Testament,  it  would,  indeed,  be 
a  misconception  if  these,  or  any  such  re- 
marks, were  quoted  as  sustaining  its  literal 
accuracy — an  idea  from  which  so  much 
harm  has  come  in  the  past.  It  would,  in- 
deed, be  a  good,  though  an  unattainable 
thing,  that  a  really  honest  and  open-minded 
attempt  should  be  made  to  weed  out  from 
that  record  the  obvious  forgeries  and  inter- 
polations which  disfigure  it,  and  lessen  the 
value  of  those  parts  which  are  really  above 
suspicion.  Is  it  necessary,  for  example,  to 
be  told,  as  an  inspired  fact  from  Christ's 
own  lips,  that  Zacharias,  the  son  of  Bara- 
chias,*  was  struck  dead  within  the  precincts 
of  the  Temple  in  the  time  of  Christ,  when, 
by  a  curious  chance,  Josephus  has  independ- 
ently narrated  the  incident  as  having  oc- 
curred during  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  thirty- 
seven  years  later  ?  This  makes  it  very  clear 
that  this  particular  Gospel,  in  its  present 
form,  was  written  after  that  event,  and  that 
the  writer  fitted  into  it  at  least  one  other 

*  The  Eef  erences  are  to  Matthew,  xxiii  35,  and  to  Josephus, 
Wars  of  the  Jews,  Book  IV,  Chapter  5. 


132  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

incident  which  had  struck  his  imagination. 
Unfortunately,  a  revision  by  general  agree- 
ment would  be  the  greatest  of  all  miracles, 
for  two  of  the  very  first  texts  to  go  would  be 
those  which  refer  to  the  "Church,"  an  in- 
stitution and  an  idea  utterly  unfamiliar  in 
the  days  of  Christ.  Since  the  object  of  the 
insertion  of  these  texts  is  perfectly  clear, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  are  for- 
geries, but  as  the  whole  system  of  the 
Papacy  rests  upon  one  of  them,  they  are 
likely  to  survive  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
The  text  alluded  to  is  made  further  impos- 
sible because  it  is  based  upon  the  supposition 
that  Christ  and  His  fishermen  conversed 
together  in  Latin  or  Greek,  even  to  the  ex- 
tent of  making  puns  in  that  language. 
Surely  the  want  of  moral  courage  and  intel- 
lectual honesty  among  Christians  will  seem 
as  strange  to  our  descendants  as  it  appears 
marvellous  to  us  that  the  great  thinkers  of 
old  could  have  believed,  or  at  least  have 
pretended  to  believe,  in  the  fighting  sexual 
deities  of  Mount  Olympus, 

Eevision  is,  indeed,  needed,  and  as  I 
have  already  pleaded,  a  change  of  emphasis 
is  also  needed,  in  order  to  get  the  grand 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  133 

Christian  conception  back  into  the  current 
of  reason  and  progress.  The  orthodox  who, 
whether  from  humble  faith  or  some  other 
cause,  do  not  look  deeply  into  such  matters, 
can  hardly  conceive  the  stumbling-blocks 
which  are  littered  about  before  the  feet  of 
their  more  critical  brethren.  What  is  easy 
for  faith  is  impossible  for  reflection.  Such 
expressions  as  "  Saved  by  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb"  or  "Baptised  by  His  precious  blood " 
fill  their  souls  with  a  gentle  and  sweet  emo- 
tion, while  upon  a  more  thoughtful  mind 
they  have  a  very  different  effect. 

Apart  from  the  apparent  injustice  of 
vicarious  atonement,  the  student  is  well 
aware  that  the  whole  of  this  sanguinary 
metaphor  is  drawn  really  from  the  Pagan 
rites  of  Mithra,  where  the  neophyte  was  ac- 
tually placed  under  a  bull  at  the  ceremony 
of  the  Taukobolium,  and  was  drenched, 
through  a  grating,  with  the  blood  of  the 
slaughtered  animal.  Such  reminiscences  of 
the  more  brutal  side  of  Paganism  are  not 
helpful  to  the  thoughtful  and  sensitive  mod- 
ern mind.  But  what  is  always  fresh  and 
always  useful  and  always  beautiful,  is  the 
memory  of  the  sweet  Spirit  who  wandered 


134  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

on  the  hillsides  of  Galilee;  who  gathered 
the  children  around  him;  who  met  his 
friends  in  innocent  good-fellowship;  who 
shrank  from  forms  and  ceremonies,  craving 
always  for  the  inner  meaning ;  who  forgave 
the  sinner;  wTho  championed  the  poor,  and 
who  in  every  decision  threw  his  weight  upon 
the  side  of  charity  and  breadth  of  view. 
"When  to  this  character  you  add  those  won- 
drous psychic  powers  already  analysed,  you 
do,  indeed,  find  a  supreme  character  in  the 
world's  history  who  obviously  stands  nearer 
to  the  Highest  than  any  other.  When  one 
compares  the  general  effect  of  His  teaching 
with  that  of  the  more  rigid  churches,  one 
marvels  how  in  their  dogmatism,  their  insist- 
ence upon  forms,  their  exclusiveness,  their 
pomp  and  their  intolerance,  they  could  have 
got  so  far  away  from  the  example  of  their 
Master,  so  that  as  one  looks  upon  Him  and 
them,  one  feels  that  there  is  absolute  deep 
antagonism  and  that  one  cannot  speak  of 
the  Church  and  Christ,  but  only  of  the 
Church  or  Christ. 

And  yet  every  Church  produces  beautiful 
souls,  though  it  may  be  debated  whether 
"produces"  or  "contains"  is  the  truthful 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  135 

word.  We  have  but  to  fall  back  upon  our 
own  personal  experience  if  we  have  lived 
long  and  mixed  much  with  our  fellow-men. 
I  have  myself  lived  during  the  seven  most 
impressionable  years  of  my  life  among  Jes- 
uits, the  most  maligned  of  all  ecclesiastical 
orders,  and  I  have  found  them  honourable 
and  good  men,  in  all  ways  estimable  outside 
the  narrowness  which  limits  the  world  to 
Mother  Church.  They  were  athletes,  schol- 
ars, and  gentlemen,  nor  can  I  ever  remem- 
ber any  examples  of  that  casuistry  with 
which  they  are  reproached.  Some  of  my 
best  friends  have  been  among  the  parochial 
clergy  of  the  Church  of  England,  men  of 
sweet  and  saintly  character,  whose  pecuni- 
ary straits  were  often  a  scandal  and  a  re- 
proach to  the  half-hearted  folk  who  ac- 
cepted their  spiritual  guidance.  I  have 
known,  also,  splendid  men  among  the  Non- 
conformist clergy,  who  have  often  been  the 
champions  of  liberty,  though  their  views 
upon  that  subject  have  sometimes  seemed 
to  contract  when  one  ventured  upon  their 
own  domain  of  thought.  Each  creed  has 
brought  out  men  who  were  an  honour  to  the 
human  race,  and  Manning  or  Shrewsbury, 


166  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

Gordon  or  Dolling,  Booth  or  Stopford 
Brooke,  are  all  equally  admirable,  however 
diverse  the  roots  from  which  they  grow. 
Among  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  too, 
there  are  very  many  thousands  of  beautiful 
souls  who  have  been  brought  up  on  the  old- 
fashioned  lines,  and  who  never  heard  of 
spiritual  communion  or  any  other  of  those 
matters  which  have  been  discussed  in  these 
essays,  and  yet  have  reached  a  condition  of 
pure  spirituality  such  as  all  of  us  may  envy. 
Who  does  not  know  the  maiden  aunt,  the 
widowed  mother,  the  mellowed  elderly  man, 
who  live  upon  the  hilltops  of  unselfishness, 
shedding  kindly  thoughts  and  deeds  around 
them,  but  with  their  simple  faith  deeply 
rooted  in  anything  or  everything  which  has 
come  to  them  in  a  hereditary  fashion  with 
the  sanction  of  some  particular  authority? 
I  had  an  aunt  who  was  such  an  one,  and 
can  see  her  now,  worn  with  austerity  and 
charity,  a  small,  humble  figure,  creeping  to1 
church  at  all  hours  from  a  house  which  was 
to  her  but  a  waiting-room  between  services, 
while  she  looked  at  me  with  sad,  wondering,' 
grey  eyes.  Such  people  have  often  reached 
by  instinct,  and  in  spite  of  dogma,  heights 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  137 

to  which  no  system  of  philosophy  can  ever 
raise  us. 

But  making  full  allowance  for  the  high 
products  of  every  creed,  which  may  be  only 
a  proof  of  the  innate  goodness  of  civilised 
humanity,  it  is  still  beyond  all  doubt  that 
Christianity  has  broken  down,  and  that  this 
breakdown  has  been  brought  home  to  every- 
one by  the  terrible  castrophe  which  has  be- 
fallen the  world.  Can  the  most  optimistic 
apologist  contend  that  this  is  a  satisfactory 
outcome  from  a  religion  which  has  had  the 
unopposed  run  of  Europe  for  so  many  cen- 
turies ?  Which  has  come  out  of  it  worst,  the 
Lutheran  Prussian,  the  Catholic  Bavarian, 
or  the  peoples  who  have  been  nurtured  by 
the  Greek  Church?  If  we,  of  the  "West, 
have  done  better,  is  it  not  rather  an  older 
and  higher  civilisation  and  freer  political 
institutions  that  have  held  us  back  from  all 
the  cruelties,  excesses  and  immoralities 
which  have  taken  the  world  back  to  the  dark 
ages  ?  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  they  have 
occurred  in  spite  of  Christianity,  and  that 
Christianity  is,  therefore,  not  to  blame.  It 
is  true  that  Christ's  teaching  is  not  to  blame, 
for  it  is  often  spoiled  in  the  transmission. 


138  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

But  Christianity  has  taken  over  control  of 
the  morals  of  Europe,  and  should  have  the 
compelling  force  which  would  ensure  that 
those  morals  would  not  go  to  pieces  upon 
the  first  strain.  It  is  on  this  point  that 
Christianity  must  be  judged,  and  the  judg- 
ment can  only  be  that  it  has  failed.  It  has 
not  been  an  active  controlling  force  upon  the 
minds  of  men.  And  why  ?  It  can  only  be 
because  there  is  something  essential  which 
is  wanting.  Men  do  not  take  it  seriously. 
Men  do  not  believe  in  it.  Lip  service  is  the 
only  service  in  innumerable  cases,  and  even 
lip  service  grows  fainter.  Men,  as  distinct 
from  women,  have,  both  in  the  higher  and 
lower  classes  of  life,  ceased,  in  the  greater 
number  of  cases,  to  show  a  living  interest 
in  religion.  The  churches  lose  their  grip 
upon  the  people — and  lose  it  rapidly.  Small 
inner  circles,  convocations,  committees,  as- 
semblies, meet  and  debate  and  pass  resolu- 
tions of  an  ever  narrower  character.  But 
the  people  go  their  way  and  religion  is  dead, 
save  in  so  far  as  intellectual  culture  and 
good  taste  can  take  its  place.  But  when 
religion  is  dead,  materialism  becomes  active, 


IS  IT  THE  SECOND  DAWN?  139 

and  what  active  materialism  may  produce 
has  been  seen  in  Germany. 

Is  it  not  time,  then,  for  the  religious 
bodies  to  discourage  their  own  bigots  and 
sectarians,  and  to  seriously  consider,  if 
only  for  self-preservation,  how  they  can  get 
into  line  once  more  with  that  general  level 
of  human  thought  which  is  now  so  far  in 
front  of  them  ?  I  say  that  they  can  do  more 
than  get  level — they  can  lead.  But  to  do 
so  they  must,  on  the  one  hand,  have  the  firm 
courage  to  cut  away  from  their  own  bodies 
all  that  dead  tissue  which  is  but  a  disfigure- 
ment and  an  encumbrance.  They  must 
face  difficulties  of  reason,  and  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  demands  of  the  human  intelli- 
gence which  rejects,  and  is  right  in  reject- 
ing, much  which  they  offer.  Finally,  they 
must  gather  fresh  strength  by  drawing  in 
all  the  new  truth  and  all  the  new  power 
which  are  afforded  by  this  riew  wave  of  in- 
spiration which  has  been  sent  into  the  world 
by  God,  and  which  the  human  race,  deluded 
and  bemused  by  the  would-be  clever,  has 
received  with  such  perverse  and  obstinate 
incredulity.  When  they  have  done  all  this, 
they  will  find  not  only  that  they  are  leading 


140  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

the  world  with  an  obvious  right  to  the  lead- 
ership, but,  in  addition,  that  they  have  come 
round  once  more  to  the  very  teaching  of 
that  Master  whom  they  have  so  long  misrep- 
resented. 


APPENDICES 


DOCTOR  GELEY 'S  EXPERIMENTS 

Nothing  could  be  imagined  more  fantas- 
tic and  grotesque  than  the  results  of  the  re- 
cent experiments  of  Professor  Geley,  in 
Prance.  Before  such  results  the  brain,  even 
of  the  trained  psychical  student,  is  dazed, 
while  that  of  the  orthodox  man  of  science, 
who  has  given  no  heed  to  these  develop- 
ments, is  absolutely  helpless.  In  the  ac- 
count of  the  proceedings  which  he  read 
lately  before  the  Institut  General  Psycholo- 
gique  in  Paris,  on  January  of  last  year,  Dr. 
Geley  says :  "I  do  not  merely  say  that  there 
has  been  no  fraud;  I  say, ' there  has  been  no 
possibility  of  fraud.'  In  nearly  every  case 
the  materialisations  were  done  under  my 
eyes,  and  I  have  observed  their  whole  gene- 
sis and  development.' '  He  adds  that,  in 
the  course  of  the  experiments,  more  than  a 

141 


142  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

hundred  experts,  mostly  doctors,  checked 
the  results. 

These  results  may  be  briefly  stated  thus. 
A  peculiar  whitish  matter  exuded  from  the 
subject,  a  girl  named  Eva,  coming  partly 
through  her  skin,  partly  from  her  hands, 
partly  from  the  orifices  of  her  face,  espe- 
cially her  mouth.  This  was  photographed 
repeatedly  at  every  stage  of  its  production, 
these  photographs  being  appended  to  the 
printed  treatise.  This  stuff,  solid  enough 
to  enable  one  to  touch  and  to  photograph, 
has  been  called  the  ectoplasm.  It  is  a  new 
order  of  matter,  and  it  is  clearly  derived 
from  the  subject  herself,  absorbing  into  her 
system  once  more  at  the  end  of  the  experi- 
ment. It  exudes  in  such  quantities  as  to 
entirely  cover  her  sometimes  as  with  an 
apron.  It  is  soft  and  glutinous  to  the  touch, 
but  varies  in  form  and  even  in  colour.  Its 
production  causes  pain  and  groans  from  the 
subject,  and  any  violence  towards  it  would 
appear  also  to  affect  her.  A  sudden  flash 
of  light,  as  in  a  flash-photograph,  may  or 
may  not  cause  a  retraction  of  the  ectoplasm, 
but  always  causes  a  spasm  of  the  subject. 
When  re-absorbed,  it  leaves  no  trace  upon 


DOCTOR  GELEY'S  EXPERIMENTS     143 

the  garments  through  which  it  has  passed. 

This  is  wonderful  enough,  but  far  more 
fantastic  is  what  has  still  to  be  told.  The 
most  marked  property  of  this  ectoplasm, 
very  fully  illustrated  in  the  photographs, 
is  that  it  sets  or  curdles  into  the  shapes  of 
human  members — of  fingers,  of  hands,  of 
faces,  which  are  at  first  quite  sketchy  and 
rudimentary,  but  rapidly  coalesce  and  de- 
velop until  they  are  undistinguishable  from 
those  of  living  beings.  Is  not  this  the  very 
strangest  and  most  inexplicable  thing  that 
has  ever  yet  been  observed  by  human  eyes  ? 
These  faces  or  limbs  are  usually  the  size  of 
life,  but  they  frequently  are  quite  minia- 
tures. Occasionally  they  begin  by  being 
miniatures,  and  grow  into  full  size.  On 
their  first  appearance  in  the  ectoplasm  the 
limb  is  only  on  one  plane  of  matter,  a  mere 
flat  appearance,  which  rapidly  rounds  itself 
off,  until  it  has  assumed  all  three  planes  and 
is  complete.  It  may  be  a  mere  simulacrum, 
like  a  wax  hand,  or  it  may  be  endowed  with 
full  power  of  grasping  another  hand,  with 
every  articulation  in  perfect  working  order. 

The  faces  which  are  produced  in  this 
amazing  way  are  worthy  of  study.    They 


144  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

do  not  appear  to  have  represented  anyone 
who  has  ever  been  known  in  life  by  Doctor 
Geley.*  My  impression  after  examining 
them  is  that  they  are  much  more  likely  to 
be  within  the  knowledge  of  the  subject,  be- 
ing girls  of  the  French  lower  middle  class 
type,  such  as  Eva  was,  I  should  imagine,  in 
the  habit  of  meeting.  It  should  be  added 
that  Eva  herself  appears  in  the  photograph 
as  well  as  the  simulacra  of  humanity,  The 
faces  are,  on  the  whole,  both  pretty  and 
piquant,  though  of  a  rather  worldly  and  un- 
refined type.  The  latter  adjective  would 
not  apply  to  the  larger  and  most  elaborate 
photograph,  which  represents  a  very  beauti- 
ful young  woman  of  a  truly  spiritual  cast  of 
face.  Some  of  the  faces  are  but  partially 
formed,  which  gives  them  a  grotesque  or 
repellant  appearance.  What  are  we  to 
make  of  such  phenomena  f  There  is  no  use 
deluding  ourselves  by  the  idea  that  there 
may  be  some  mistake  or  some  deception. 
There  is  neither  one  nor  the  other.  Apart 
from  the  elaborate  checks  upon  these  par- 
ticular results,  they  correspond  closely  with 

*Dr.  Geley  writes  to  me  that  they  are  unknown  either  to 
him  or  to  the  medium. 


DOCTOR  GELEY'S  EXPERIMENTS     145 

those  got  by  Lombroso  in  Italy,  by  Schrenk- 
Notzing  in  Germany,  and  by  other  careful 
observers.  One  thing  we  must  bear  in  mind 
constantly  in  considering  them,  and  that  is 
their  abnormality.  At  a  liberal  estimate,  it 
is  not  one  person  in  a  million  who  possesses 
such  powers — if  a  thing  which  is  outside  ouf 
volition  can  be  described  as  a  power.  It  is 
the  mechanism  of  the  materialisation  me- 
dium which  has  been  explored  by  the  acute 
brain  and  untiring  industry  of  Doctor  Geley, 
and  even  presuming,  as  one  may  fairly  pre- 
sume, that  every  materialising  medium  goes 
through  the  same  process  in  order  to  pro- 
duce results,  still  such  mediums  are  exceed- 
ingly rare.  Dr.  Geley  mentions,  as  an  an- 
alogous phenomenon  on  the  material  side, 
the  presence  of  dermoid  cysts,  those  mysteri- 
ous formations,  which  rise  as  small  tumors 
in  any  part  of  the  body,  particularly  above 
the  eyebrow,  and  which  when  opened  by  the 
surgeon  are  found  to  contain  hair,  teeth  or 
embryonic  bones.  There  is  no  doubt,  as  he 
claims,  some  rough  analogy,  but  the  dermoid 
cyst  is,  at  least,  in  the  same  flesh  and  blood 
plane  of  nature  as  the  foetus  inside  it,  while 


146  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

in  the  ectoplasm  we  are  dealing  with  an 
entirely  new  and  strange  development. 

It  is  not  possible  to  define  exactly  what 
occurs  in  the  case  of  the  ectoplasm,  nor,  on 
account  of  its  vital  connection  with  the  me- 
dium and  its  evanescent  nature,  has  it  been 
separated  and  subjected  to  even  the  rough- 
est chemical  analysis  which  might  show 
whether  it  is  composed  of  those  earthly  ele- 
ments with  which  we  are  familiar.  Is  it 
rather  some  coagulation  of  ether  which  in- 
troduces an  absolutely  new  substance  into 
our  world  ?  Such  a  supposition  seems  most 
probable,  for  a  comparison  with  the  analo- 
gous substance  examined  at  Dr.  Crawford's 
seances  at  Belfast,  which  is  at  the  same  time 
hardly  visible  to  the  eye  and  yet  capable  of 
handling  a  weight  of  150  pounds,  suggests 
something  entirely  new  in  the  way  of  matter. 

But  setting  aside,  as  beyond  the  present 
speculation,  what  the  exact  origin  and  na- 
ture of  the  ectoplasm  may  be,  it  seems  to 
me  that  there  is  room  for  a  very  suggestive 
line  of  thought  if  we  make  Geley's  experi- 
ments the  starting  point,  and  lead  it  in  the 
direction  of  other  manifestations  of  psycho- 
material  activity.     First  of  all,  let  us  take 


DOCTOR  GELEY'S  EXPERIMENTS     147 

Crookes'  classic  experiments  with.  Katie 
King,  a  result  which  for  a  long  time  stood 
alone  and  isolated  but  now  can  be  ap- 
proached by  intermittent  but  definite  stages. 
Thus  we  can  well  suppose  that  during  those 
long  periods  when  Florrie  Cook  lay  in  the 
laboratory  in  the  dark,  periods  which  lasted 
an  hour  or  more  upon  some  occasions,  the 
ectoplasm  was  flowing  from  her  as  from 
Eva.  Then  it  was  gathering  itself  into  a 
viscous  cloud  or  pillar  close  to  her  frame; 
then  the  form  of  Katie  King  was  evolved 
from  this  cloud,  in  the  manner  already  de- 
scribed, and  finally  the  nexus  was  broken 
and  the  completed  body  advanced  to  present 
itself  at  the  door  of  communication,  show- 
ing a  person  different  in  every  possible  at- 
tribute save  that  of  sex  from  the  medium, 
and  jet  composed  wholly  or  in  part  from 
elements  extracted  from  her  senseless  body. 
So  far,  Geley's  experiments  throw  a  strong 
explanatory  light  upon  those  of  Crookes. 
And  here  the  Spiritualist  must,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  be  prepared  to  meet  an  objection 
more  formidable  than  the  absurd  ones  of 
fraud  or  optical  delusion.  It  is  this.  If 
the  body  of  Katie  King  the  spirit  is  derived 


148  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

from  the  body  of  Florrie  Cook  the  psychic, 
then  what  assurance  have  we  that  the  life 
therein  is  not  really  one  of  the  personalities 
out  of  which  the  complex  being  named 
Florrie  Cook  is  constructed  ?  It  is  a  thesis 
which  requires  careful  handling.  It  is  not 
enough  to  say  that  the  nature  is  manifestly 
superior,  for  supposing  that  Florrie  Cook 
represented  the  average  of  a  number  of 
conflicting  personalities,  then  a  single  one 
of  these  personalities  might  be  far  higher 
than  the  total  effect.  "Without  going  deeply 
into  this  problem,  one  can  but  say  that  the 
spirit's  own  account  of  its  own  personality 
must  count  for  something,  and  also  that  an 
isolated  phenomenon  must  be  taken  in  con- 
junction with  all  other  psychic  phenomena 
when  we  are  seeking  for  a  correct  explana- 
tion. 

But  now  let  us  take  this  idea  of  a  human 
being  who  has  the  power  of  emitting  a  visi- 
ble substance  in  which  are  formed  faces 
which  appear  to  represent  distinct  individ- 
ualities, and  in  extreme  cases  develop  into 
complete  independent  human  forms.  Take 
this  extraordinary  fact,  and  let  us  see 
whether,  by  an  extension  or  modification  of 


DOCTOR  GELEY'S  EXPERIMENTS     149 

this  demonstrated  process,  we  may  not  get 
some  sort  of  clue  as  to  the  modus  operandi 
in  other  psychic  phenomena.  It  seems  to 
me  that  we  may,  at  least,  obtain  indications 
which  amount  to  a  probability,  though  not 
to  a  certainty,  as  to  how  some  results, 
hitherto  inexplicable,  are  attained.  It  is  at 
any  rate  a  provisional  speculation,  which 
may  suggest  a  hypothesis  for  future  observ- 
ers to  destroy,  modify,  or  confirm. 

The  argument  which  I  would  advance  is 
this.  If  a  strong  materialisation  medium 
can  throw  out  a  cloud  of  stuff  which  is  actual- 
ly visible,  may  not  a  medium  of  a  less  pro- 
nounced type  throw  out  a  similar  cloud 
with  analogous  properties  which  is  not 
opaque  enough  to  be  seen  by  the  average 
eye,  but  can  make  an  impression  both  on  the 
dry  plate  in  the  camera  and  on  the  clair- 
voyant faculty?  If  that  be  so — and  it 
would  not  seem  to  be  a  very  far-fetched 
proposition — we  have  at  once  an  explana- 
tion both  of  psychic  photographs  and  of  the 
visions  of  the  clairvoyant  seer.  -When  I 
say  an  explanation,  I  mean  of  its  superficial 
method  of  formation,  and  not  of  the  forces 
at  work  behind,  which  remain  no  less  a  rays- 


150  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

teiy  even  when  we  accept  Dr.  Geley's  state- 
ment that  they  are  "ideoplastic." 

Here  we  have,  I  think,  some  attempt  at 
a  generalisation,  which  might,  perhaps,  be 
useful  in  evolving  some  first  signs  of  order 
out  of  this  chaos.  It  is  conceivable  that  the 
thinner  emanation  of  the  clairvoyant  would 
extend  far  further  than  the  thick  material 
ectoplasm,  but  have  the  same  property  of 
moulding  itself  into  life,  though  the  life 
forms  would  only  be  visible  to  the  clair- 
voyant eye.  Thus,  when  Mr.  Tom  Tyrrell, 
or  any  other  competent  exponent,  stands 
upon  the  platform  his  emanation  fills  the 
hall.  Into  this  emanation,  as  into  the  visi- 
ble ectoplasm  in  Geley's  experiments,  break 
the  faces  and  forms  of  those  from  the  other 
side  who  are  attracted  to  the  scene  by  their 
sympathy  with  various  members  of  the  audi- 
ence. They  are  seen  and  described  by  Mr. 
Tyrrell,  who  with  his  finely  attuned  senses, 
carefully  conserved  (he  hardly  eats  or 
drinks  upon  a  day  when  he  demonstrates), 
can  hear  that  thinner  higher  voice  that  calls 
their  names,  their  old  addresses  and  their 
messages.  So,  too,  when  Mr.  Hope  and 
Mrs.  Buxton  stand  with  their  hands  joined 


DOCTOR  GELEY'S  EXPERIMENTS     151 

over  the  cap  of  the  camera,  they  are  really 
throwing  out  a  misty  ectoplasm  from  which 
the  forms  loom  up  which  appear  upon  the 
photographic  plate.  ■  It  may  be  that  I  mis- 
take an  analogy  for  an  explanation,  but  I 
put  the  theory  on  record  for  what  it  is  worth. 


A  PARTICULAR  INSTANCE 

I  have  been  in  touch  with  a  series  of 
'events  in  America  lately,  and  can  vouch 
for  the  facts  as  much  as  any  man  can  vouch 
for  facts  which  did  not  occur  to  himself. 
I  have  not  the  least  doubt  in  my  own  mind 
that  they  are  true,  and  a  more  remarkable 
double  proof  of  the  continuity  of  life  has, 
I  should  think,  seldom  been  published.  A 
book  has  recently  been  issued  by  Harpers, 
of  New  York,  called  "The  Seven  Purposes. " 
In  this  book  the  authoress,  Miss  Margaret 
Cameron,  describes  how  she  suddenly  de- 
veloped the  power  of  automatic  writing. 
She  was  not  a  Spiritualist  at  the  time.  Her 
hand  was  controlled  and  she  wrote  a  quantity 
of  matter  which  was  entirely  outside  her 
own  knowledge  or  character.  Upon  her 
doubting  whether  her  sub-conscious  self 
might  in  some  way  be  producing  the  writ- 

152 


A  PARTICULAR  INSTANCE  153 

ing,  which  was  partly  done  by  planehette, 
the  script  was  written  upside  down  and  from 
right  to  left,  as  though  the  writer  was  seated 
opposite.  Such  script  could  not  possibly  be 
written  by  the  lady  herself.  Upon  making 
enquiry  as  to  who  was  using  her  hand,  the 
answer  came  in  writing  that  it  was  a  certain 
Fred  Gaylord,  and  that  his  object  was  to  get 
a  message  to  his  mother.  The  youth  was  un- 
known to  Miss  Cameron,  but  she  knew  the 
family  and  forwarded  the  message,  with  the 
result  that  the  mother  came  to  see  her,  ex- 
amined the  evidence,  communicated  with  the 
son,  and  finally,  returning  home,  buried  all 
her  evidences  of  mourning,  feeling  that  the 
boy  was  no  more  dead  in  the  old  sense  than 
if  he  were  alive  in  a  foreign  country. 

There  is  the  first  proof  of  preternatural 
agency,  since  Miss  Cameron  developed  so 
much  knowledge  which  she  could  not  have 
normally  acquired,  using  many  phrases  and 
ideas  which  were  characteristic  of  the  de- 
ceased. But  mark  the  sequel.  Gaylord  was 
merely  a  pseudonym,  as  the  matter  was  so 
private  that  the  real  name,  which  we  will 
put  as  Bridger,  was  not  disclosed.  A  few 
months  after  the  book  was  published  Miss 


154.  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

Cameron  received  a  letter  from  a  stranger 
living  a  thousand  miles  away.  This  letter 
and  the  whole  correspondence  I  have  seen. 
The  stranger,  Mrs.  Nicol,  says  that  as  a  test 
she  would  like  to  ask  whether  the  real  name 
given  as  Fred  Gaylord  in  the  book  is  not 
Fred  Bridger,  as  she  had  psychic  reasons  for 
believing  so.  Miss  Cameron  replied  that 
it  was  so,  and  expressed  her  great  surprise 
that  so  secret  and  private  a  matter  should 
have  been  correctly  stated.  Mrs.  Nicol  then 
explained  that  she  and  her  husband,  both 
connected  with  journalism  and  both  abso- 
lutely agnostic,  had  discovered  that  she  had 
the  power  of  automatic  writing.  That  while 
using  this  power  she  had  received  communi- 
cations purporting  to  come  from  Fred  Brid- 
ger whom  they  had  known  in  life,  and  that 
upon  reading  Miss  Cameron's  book  they  had 
received  from  Fred  Bridger  the  assurance 
that  he  was  the  same  person  as  the  Fred 
Gaylord  of  Miss  Cameron. 

Now,  arguing  upon  these  facts,  and  they 
would  appear  most  undoubtedly  to  be  facts, 
what  possible  answer  can  the  materialist 
or  the  sceptic  give  to  the  assertion  that  they 
are  a  double  proof  of  the  continuity  of  per- 


A  PARTICULAR  INSTANCE  155, 

sonality  and  the  possibility  of  communica- 
tion? Can  any  reasonable  system  of  tele- 
pathy explain  how  Miss  Cameron  discovered 
the  intimate  points  characteristic  of  young 
Gaylord  ?  And  then,  how  are  we  afterwards, 
by  any  possible  telepathy,  to  explain  the 
revelation  to  Mrs.  Nicol  of  the  identity  of 
her  communicant,  Fred  Bridger,  with  the 
Fred  Gaylord  who  had  been  written  of  by 
Miss  Cameron.  The  case  for  return  seems 
to  me  a  very  convincing  one,  though  I  con- 
tend now,  as  ever,  that  it  is  not  the  return 
of  the  lost  ones  which  is  of  such  cogent  in- 
terest as  the  message  from  the  beyond  which 
they  bear  with  them. 


0 

SPIRIT  PHOTOGRAPHY 

On  this  subject  I  should  recommend  the 
reader  to  consult  Coates'  "  Photographing 
the  Invisible,"  which  states,  in  a  thoughtful 
and  moderate  way,  the  evidence  for  this 
most  remarkable  phase,  and  illustrates  it 
with  many  examples.  It  is  pointed  out  that 
here,  as  always,  fraud  must  be  carefully 
guarded  against,  having  been  admitted  in 
the  case  of  the  French  spirit  photographer, 
Buguet. 

There  are,  however,  a  large  number  of 
cases  where  the  photograph,  under  rigid 
test  conditions  in  which  fraud  has  been  abso- 
lutely barred,  has  reproduced  the  features 
of  the  dead.  Here  there  are  limitations  and 
restrictions  which  call  for  careful  study  and 
observation.  These  faces  of  the  dead  are 
in  some  cases  as  contoured  and  as  recog- 
nisable as  they  were  in  life,  and  correspond 

156 


SPIRIT  PHOTOGRAPHY  15T! 

with  no  pre-existing  picture  or  photograph. 
One  such  case  absolutely  critic-proof  is 
enough,  one  would  think,  to  establish  sur- 
vival, and  these  valid  cases  are  to  be  counted 
not  in  ones,  but  in  hundreds.  On  the  other 
hand,  many  of  the  likenesses,  obtained 
under  the  same  test  conditions,  are  obvi- 
ously simulacra  or  pictures  built  up  by 
some  psychic  force,  not  necessarily  by  the 
individual  spirits  themselves,  to  represent 
the  dead.  In  some  undoubtedly  genuine 
cases  it  is  an  exact,  or  almost  exact,  repro- 
duction of  an  existing  picture,  as  if  the 
conscious  intelligent  force,  whatever  it 
might  be,  had  consulted  it  as  to  the  former 
appearance  of  the  deceased,  and  had  then 
built  it  up  in  exact  accordance  with  the 
original.  In  such  cases  the  spirit  face  may 
show  as  a  flat  surface  instead  of  a  contour. 
Eigid  examination  has  shown  that  the  exist- 
ing model  was  usually  outside  the  ken  of 
the  photographer. 

Two  of  the  bravest  champions  whom 
Spiritualism  has  ever  produced,  the  late 
W.  T.  Stead  and  the  late  Archdeacon  Colley 
— names  which  will  bulk  large  in  days  to 
come — attached  great  importance  to  spirit 


158  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

photography  as  a  final  and  incontestable 
proof  of  survival.  In  his  recent  work, 
"Proofs  of  the  Truth  of  Spiritualism" 
(Kegan  Paul),  the  eminent  botanist,  Pro- 
fessor Henslow,  has  given  one  case  which 
would  really  appear  to  be  above  criticism. 
He  narrates  how  the  inquirer  subjected  a 
eealed  packet  of  plates  to  the  Crewe  circle 
without  exposure,  endeavoring  to  get  a 
psychograph.  Upon  being  asked  on  which 
plate  he  desired  it,  he  said  "the  fifth." 
Upon  this  plate  being  developed,  there  was 
found  on  it  a  copy  of  a  passage  from  the 
Codex  Alexandrinus  of  the  New  Testament 
in  the  British  Museum.  Reproductions, 
both  of  the  original  and  of  the  copy,  will  be 
found  in  Professor  Henslow 's  book. 

I  have  myself  been  to  Crewe  and  have  had 
results  which  would  be  amazing  were  it  not 
that  familiarity  blunts  the  mind  to  miracles. 
Three  marked  plates  brought  by  myself,  and 
handled,  developed  and  fixed  by  no  hand  but 
mine,  gave  psychic  extras.  In  each  case  I 
saw  the  extra  in  the  negative  when  it  was 
still  wet  in  the  dark  room.  I  reproduce  in 
Plate  I  a  specimen  of  the  results,  which  is 
enough  in  itself  to  prove  the  whole  case  of 


I. IMPRESSION     RECEIVED      UPON     A      MARKED     PLATE 

WHICH  NEVER  WENT  OUT  OF  THE  AUTHOR'S  HANDS, 
SAVE  WHEN  IT  WAS  IN  THE  CARRIER.  THERE  IS  A 
PARTIAL  MATERIALISATION  BEHIND.  IN  FRONT  IS  AN 
INSCRIPTION   SIGNED   "t.    COLLEY" 


; 


I     J 


II. SPECIMEN      OF      ARCHDEACON      COI.I.EY  S     WRITING 

DFRING    HIS   LIFETIME 


III. PHOTOGRAPH    IX    LIFE    OF    LIEUT.    WILL.    HE  WAT 

MACKEXZIE 


IV. PHOTOGRAPH  OF  LIEUT.  WILL.  HE  WAT  MACKEN- 
ZIE, TAKEN  SOME  MONTHS  AFTER  HIS  DEATH,  IN  THE 
CIRCUMSTANCES    DESCRIBED    IN    THE    TEXT 


SPIRIT  PHOTOGRAPHY  159 

survival  to  any  reasonable  mind.  The  three 
sitters  are  Mr.  Oaten,  Mr.  Walker,  and  my- 
self, I  being  obscured  by  the  psychic  cloud. 
In  this  cloud  appears  a  message  of  welcome 
to  me  from  the  late  Archdeacon  Colley.  A 
specimen  of  the  Archdeacon's  own  hand- 
writing is  reproduced  in  Plate  II  for  the 
purpose  of  comparison.  Behind,  there  is 
an  attempt  at  materialisation  obscured  by 
the  cloud.  The  mark  on  the  side  of  the 
plate  is  my  identification  mark.  I  trust  that 
I  make  it  clear  that  no  hand  but  mine  ever 
touched  this  plate,  nor  did  I  ever  lose  sight 
of  it  for  a  second  save  when  it  was  in  the 
carrier,  which  was  conveyed  straight  back 
to  the  dark  room  and  there  opened.  What 
has  any  critic  to  say  to  that  ? 

By  the  kindness  of  those  fearless  pioneers 
of  the  movement,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hewat 
Mackenzie,  I  am  allowed  to  publish  another 
example  of  spirit  photography.  The  cir- 
cumstances were  very  remarkable.  The 
visit  of  the  parents  to  Crewe  was  unproduc- 
tive and  their  plate  a  blank  save  for  their 
own  presentment.  Returning  disappointed 
to  London  they  managed,  through  the  me- 


160  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

diumship  of  Mrs.  Leonard,  to  get  into  touch 
with  their  boy,  and  asked  him  why  they 
had  failed.  He  replied  that  the  conditions 
had  been  bad,  but  that  he  had  actually  suc- 
ceeded some  days  later  in  getting  on  to  the 
plate  of  Lady  Glenconnor,  who  had  been  to 
Crewe  upon  a  similar  errand.  The  parents 
communicated  with  this  lady,  who  replied 
saying  that  she  had  found  the  image  of  a 
stranger  upon  her  plate.  On  receiving  a 
print  they  at  once  recognised  their  son,  and 
could  even  see  that,  as  a  proof  of  identity, 
he  had  reproduced  the  bullet  wound  on  his 
left  temple.  No.  3  is  their  gallant  son  as 
he  appeared  in  the  flesh,  No.  4  is  his  reap- 
pearance after  death.  The  opinion  of  a 
miniature  painter  who  had  done  a  picture  of 
the  young  soldier  is  worth  recording  as  evi- 
dence of  identity.  The  artist  says:  " After 
painting  the  miniature  of  your  son  "Will,  I 
feel  I  know  every  turn  of  his  face,  and  am 
quite  convinced  of  the  likeness  of  the  psy- 
chic photograph.  All  the  modelling  of  the 
brow,  nose  and  eyes  is  marked  by  illness — 
especially  is  the  mouth  slightly  contracted 
— but  this  does  not  interfere  with  the  real 


SPIRIT  PHOTOGRAPHY  161 

form.  The  way  the  hair  grows  on  the  brow 
and  temple  is  noticeably  like  the  photograph 
taken  before  he  was  wounded." 


D 

THE  CLAIRVOYANCE  OF  MRS.  B. 

At  the  time  of  this  volume  going  to  press 
the  results  obtained  by  clients  of  this  me- 
dium have  been  forty-two  successes  out  of 
fifty  attempts,  checked  and  docketted  by  the 
author.  This  series  forms  a  most  conclusive 
proof  of  spirit  clairvoyance.  An  attempt 
has  been  made  by  Mr.  E.  F.  Benson,  who 
examined  some  of  the  letters,  to  exjDlain  the 
results  upon  the  grounds  of  telepathy.  He 
admits  that  "The  tastes,  appearance  and 
character  of  the  deceased  are  often  given, 
and  many  names  are  introduced  by  the  me- 
dium, some  not  traceable,  but  most  of  them 
identical  with  relations  or  friends."  Such 
an  admission  would  alone  banish  thought- 
reading  as  an  explanation,  for  there  is  no 
evidence  in  existence  to  show  that  this  power 
ever  reaches  such  perfection  that  one  who 
possesses  it  could  draw  the  image  of  a  dead 

162 


THE  CLAIRVOYANCE  OF  MRS.  B.     163 

man  from  your  brain,  fit  a  correct  name  to 
him,  and  then  associate  him  with  all  sorts  of 
definite  and  detailed  actions  in  which  he 
was  engaged.  Such  an  explanation  is  not 
an  explanation  but  a  pretence.  But  even 
if  one  were  to  allow  such  a  theory  to  pass, 
there  are  numerous  incidents  in  these  ac- 
counts which  could  not  be  explained  in  such 
a  fashion,  where  unknown  details  have  been 
given  which  were  afterwards  verified,  and 
even  where  mistakes  in  thought  upon  the 
part  of  the  sitter  were  corrected  by  the  me- 
dium under  spirit  guidance.  Personally  I 
believe  that  the  medium's  own  account  of 
how  she  gets  her  remarkable  results  is  the 
absolute  truth,  and  I  can  imagine  no  other 
fashion  in  which  they  can  be  explained. 
She  has,  of  course,  her  bad  days,  and  the 
conditions  are  always  worst  when  there  is  an 
inquisitorial  rather  than  a  religious  atmos- 
phere in  the  interview.  This  intermittent 
character  of  the  results  is,  according  to  my 
experience,  characteristic  of  spirit  clair- 
voyance as  compared  with  thought-reading, 
which  can,  in  its  more  perfect  form,  become 
almost  automatic  within  certain  marked 
limits.    I  may  add  that  the  constant  prac- 


164  THE  VITAL  MESSAGE 

tice  of  some  psychical  researchers  to  take  no 
notice  at  all  of  the  medium's  own  account  of 
how  he  or  she  attains  results,  but  to  substi- 
tute some  complicated  and  unproved  ex- 
planation of  their  own,  is  as  insulting  as  it  is 
unreasonable.  It  has  been  alleged  as  a  slur 
upon  Mrs.  B's  results  and  character  that 
she  has  been  twice  prosecuted  by  the  police. 
This  is,  in  fact,  not  a  slur  upon  the  medium 
but  rather  upon  the  law,  which  is  in  so  bar- 
barous a  condition  that  the  true  seer  fares 
no  better  than  the  impostor,  and  that  no  defi- 
nite psychic  principles  are  recognised.  A 
medium  may  under  such  circumstances  be  a 
martyr  rather  than  a  criminal,  and  a  convic- 
tion ceases  to.be  a  stain  upon  the  character. 


FOURTEEN  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

EDUCATION-PSYCROUOG* 
LIDRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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